A    TREATISE 


INCARNATION 


ETERNAL  WORD. 


NEW BURGH: 

DAVID    L.    PROUDFIT. 
1842. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1842, 

BY  DAVID  L.  PROUDFIT, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  Southern  District  of  New- York. 


H.  LUDWIO,   PRINTER, 
73  Vwey  «t,  N.  Y. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


THE  substance  of  the  following  Essay  was 
published  several  years  ago,  in  an  Edinburgh 
periodical,  in  connection  with  a  review  of 
some  ephemeral  publications  on  the  human 
nature  of  Christ.  When  the  present  Editor 
first  met  with  the  article,  he  was  so  impressed 
with  its  value,  that  he  thought  it  would  be 
useful  to  give  it  to  the  public  in  a  separate 
form.  This  belief  was  strengthened  by  a  re- 
perusal,  after  the  lapse  of  some  years,  and  by 
the  concurring  opinion  of  several  judicious 
friends.  He  accordingly  proceeded  to  prepare 
it  for  publication.  In  doing  this,  the  whole 
Essay  had  to  be  re-written  and  several  altera- 
tions made,  as  it  was  not  originally  written  for 
separate  publication.  No  farther  liberties, 
however,  have  been  taken  with  the  Author 
than  were  necessary  to  give  the  work  a  regu- 
lar and  connected  form.  In  preparing  it  for 


IV  ADVERTISEMENT. 

the  press,  the  Editor  believed  it  calculated  to 
subserve  the  cause  of  truth  and  righteousness, 
and  his  sincere  desire  is  that  it  may  be  blessed 
to  the  welfare  of  his  fellow-beings.  How  far 
his  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  work  is  correct, 
will  be  judged  by  the  Christian  public,  to 
whom  it  is  now  respectfully  committed. 


THE    INCARNATION. 

THE  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  so  far  as  it 
can  be  understood  by  man,  is  sufficiently  sim- 
ple, and  might  be  stated  in  a  few  sentences. 
But  it  has  been  so  involved — not  in  mystery, 
for  a  mystery  the  gospel  makes  it,  and  a  mys- 
tery it  must  ever  remain— but  in  metaphysical 
perplexities,  as  to  make  it  look  with  a  most  un- 
favourable aspect,  upon  almost  every  article  of 
our  creed.  It  will  therefore  be  necessary  to 
take  a  somewhat  more  extended  survey  of  the 
work  of  redemption  than  would  otherwise  have 
been  requisite,  that  we  may,  if  possible,  have 
a  clearer  view  of  the  Incarnation  from  the  light 
reflected  on  it  by  being  viewed  in  its  proper 
place  in  the  Christian  system. 

That  God  made  all  things  for  his  own  glory, 
is  a  proposition  which  we  suppose  will  not  be 
disputed  by  any.  It  is  a  proposition,  however, 
which  requires  some  explanation.  When  we 
say  that  he  made  all  things  for  his  own  glory, 
we  mean,  not  that  he  made  them  for  the  pur- 
pose of  rendering  himself  more  glorious  than 
he  was  from  all  eteniity,  for  that  is  impossible, 
his  glory  being  alike  incapable  of  increase  and 
diminution,  but  that  he  made  them  for  the  pur- 
1* 


6  THE    INCARNATION. 

pose  of  making  his  glorious  perfections  mani- 
fest. And  when  we  say  that  he  made  all  things 
to  manifest  his  own  perfections,  we  mean  that 
the  manifestation  was  to  be  given,  not  to  him- 
self, which  was  impossible,  but  to  the  creatures 
whom  he  made.  It  was  obvious  then  that  the 
manifestation  wras  to  b%e  made,  both  by  the  crea- 
tures and  to  the  creatures.  They  were  to  be 
both  the  manifesters,  and  the  percipients  of  the 
perfections  so  manifested ;  and  this  was  the 
great  end  of  the  being  of  the  creatures.  Now 
as  this  is  the  end  of  every  creature's  being,  that 
it  may,  according  to  its  nature,  manifest  the 
perfections  of  God,  and  perceive  them  as  man- 
ifested by  itself  and  all  other  creatures,  it  fol- 
lows, as  a  necessary  consequence,  that  to  do 
this  must  be  just  the  glory  and  happiness  of 
the  creature,  its  being's  end  and  aim  ;  and  it 
follows  also,  that  the  higher  the  degree  in 
which  any  creature  is  capable  of  doing  this, 
the  higher  is  the  degree  of  glory  and  of  happi- 
ness which  it  is  capable  of  attaining  and  en- 
joying 

That  every  thing,  according  to  its  nature  and 
capacity,  does  both  manifest  the  perfections  of 
God,  and  rejoice  in  them,  is  a  fact  open  to  every 
one's  observation,  and  is  often  referred  to  in 
Scripture.  The  inanimate  parts  of  God's 
works  are  often  spoken  of,  not  only  as  mani- 


THE    INCARNATION.  7 

Testing  his  perfections,  but  as  rejoicing  in  the 
manifestation.  "  The  heavens  declare  the 
glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament  showeth  forth 
the  works  of  his  hands.  Day  unto  day  utter- 
eth  speech,  and  night  unto  night  teacheth 
knowledge."  The  sun  rejoiceth  to  run  his 
race ;  the  heavens  and  the  earth  are  called  on 
to  hear  the  word  of  the  Lord  ;  the  sea  roars 
and  the  fulness  thereof;  the  floods  lift  up  their 
voice  ;  the  forests  clap  their  hands,  the  moun- 
tains break  forth  into  singing,  and  the  little 
hills  rejoice.  These,  no  doubt,  will  be  con- 
sidered as  figurative  expressions,  and  so  they 
are ;  but  then  they  are  expressions  which 
show  the  truth  of  the  principle  that  all  things, 
according  to  their  nature,  manifest  the  perfec- 
tions of  God,  and  rejoice  in  them  when  so 
manifested.  The  same  remark  still  more  ob- 
viously applies  to  such  things  as  have  life  and 
feeling.  The  lower  animals,  which  have  re- 
ceived their  instincts  from  God,  and  enjoy  his 
bounties,  though  they  know  not,  nor  can  know, 
any  thing  of  him  from  whom  their  enjoyments 
come,  afford  a  still  more  striking  manifestation 
of  his  perfections,  as  is  amply  and  beautifully 
illustrated  towards  the  end  of  the  book  of  Job. 
But  beyond  all  creatures  man  is  fitted  not 
merely  to  be  the  percipient  of  the  Divine  per- 
fections, but  to  manifest  these  perfections ; 


8  THE    INCARNATION. 

and  this  he  does  not  simply  by  that  bodily 
structure  which  is  "  fearfully  and  wonderfully 
made,"  nor  by  those  mental  faculties  which 
raise  him  so  high  above  the  lower  animals, 
which  enable  him  to  recall  the  past,  to  antici- 
pate the  future,  and  to  approximate  the  re- 
mote, but  more  particularly  by  the  fall,  the 
redemption,  and  the  whole  history  of  the  hu- 
man race.  The  first  lesson  that  our  church 
teaches  her  children  is,  "  The  chief  end  of 
man  is  to  glorify  God  and  enjoy  him  for  ever ;  " 
and  it  is  upon  this  broad  basis  that  we  con- 
ceive all  sound  theology  must  be  built. 

Now  this  leads  us  to  consider  the  work  of 
man's  redemption,  not  simply  with  a  reference 
to  man  alone,  but  to  the  whole  rational  family 
of  God.  The  election  of  Israel  out  of  all  the 
tribes  of  the  earth,  to  be  the  chosen  people  of 
God,  will  afford  us  a  correct  illustration  of  the 
choice  of  the  human  race  as  the  objects  in 
whom  his  redeeming  power  and  love  might  be 
displayed,  from  among  all  the  various  races 
that  constitute  his  moral  government.  The 
Israelites  were  not  chosen  to  be  the  peculiar 
people  of  God  on  account  of  any  superiority 
that  they  possessed  over  the  rest  of  mankind, 
for  they  were  chosen  in  Abraham,  before  they 
actually  existed  ;  so  neither  were  mankind 
chosen  to  be  the  objects  of  God's  redeeming 


THE    INCARNATION.  9 

love  on  account  of  any  intrinsic  merit  of  their 
own,  for  this  idea  is  inconsistent  with  the  fact 
that  they  needed  redemption,  but  were  chosen 
in  Christ  before  they  were  created.  The  Is- 
raelites were  not  chosen  that  they  alone  might 
enjoy  the  blessing  of  God,  but  that,  through 
them,  that  blessing  might  come  upon  all  na- 
tions ;  neither  was  man  chosen  to  redemption 
that  its  blessings  might  redound  to  him  alone, 
but  "  to  the  intent  that  unto  the  principalities 
and  powers  in  heavenly  places,  might  be 
known,  by  the  church,  the  manifold  wisdom  of 
God.  The  Israelites  were  chosen,  that  unto 
them  God  might  commit  his  revelations  for 
the  use  of  all  nations :  so  were  men  chosen, 
that  in  them  God  might  manifest  his  perfec- 
tions for  the  instruction  of  all  his  rational  crea- 
tures. Though  many  of  his  chosen  Israel 
perished  in  their  sins  and  their  idolatries,  yet 
the  great  purposes  for  which  that  people  was 
chosen  were  effectually  accomplished :  so, 
though  multitudes  of  the  human  race  perish, 
yet  the  designs  of  God's  redeeming  love,  and 
the  lessons  which  it  is  fitted  to  teach,  are  not 
the  less  effectually  accomplished.  As  the 
Israelites,  though  far  behind  most  other  na- 
tions in  arts  and  sciences,  yet  taught  to  the 
world  something  infinitely  more  valuable  than 
aught  that  art  or  science  were  ever  capable  of 


10  THE    INCARNATION. 

discovering :  so  the  human  race,  though  far 
inferior  to  man,  other  races,  yet  manifests  to 
all  a  knowledge  of  the  character  and  perfec- 
tions of  God,  which  otherwise  they  could  never 
have  known.  And,  finally,  as  the  Israelites 
are  destined  yet  to  stand  at  the  very  head  of 
the  human  race,  and  to  be  the  most  glorious  of 
nations  :  even  so  the  human  race,  though  now 
so  low,  is  destined  to  take  its  place  at  the 
head  of  all  the  families  of  God.  Human  na- 
ture is,  at  this  moment,  the  most  glorious  of 
created  natures,  taken,  in  its  assumption  by  the 
Son,  into  a  nearness  of  union  with  the  God- 
head, which  none  other  enjoys  ;  and  where  our 
head  is,  there  all  his  true  members  shall  in  due 
time  be.  As  the  man  Christ  Jesus  passed 
through  all  suffering  into  glory,  even  so  his 
people,  exposed  to  dangers  which  others  never 
knew,  and  made  triumphant  through  his  Spirit 
dwelling  in  them,  rise  to  honours  with  which 
others  can  never  be  crowned ;  and,  living 
monuments  of  all  those  divine  perfections 
which  were  displayed  in  their  redemption, 
living  records  of  the  glory  of  God,  they  will 
awaken,  among  the  hosts  of  heaven,  a  song 
which,  throughout  eternity,  will  be  ever  new. 
In  fine,  if  all  things  were  made  for  the  purpose 
of  manifesting  to  the  creatures  the  perfections 
of  the  Creator,  then,  above  all  things  with 


THE    INCARNATION.  11 

which  we  are  acquainted,  must  the  work  of 
redemption  be  designed  and  fitted  for  this 
great  end. 

In  order  to  see  how  the  human  race,  in  their 
fall  and  their  redemption,  acquire  for  them- 
selves, and  teach  to  others,  this  knowledge  of 
the  perfection  of  the  Creator,  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  go  back  to  a  period  when  as  yet  there 
was  no  sin  in  the  dominions  of  God — when 
there  were  none  but  unfallen  beings  in  exist- 
ence. Such  beings,  it  is  clear,  could  have  but 
a  very  limited  and  defective  view  of  the  nature 
and  character  of  God.  From  his  works  they 
would  be  able  to  infer  that  he  was  possessed 
of  great  wisdom  and  great  power ;  and,  from 
the  happiness  they  enjoyed,  they  would  be 
persuaded  of  his  great  goodness.  But  that  his 
wisdom  was  omniscience — that  his  power  was 
omnipotence — that  his  goodness  could  extend, 
not  merely  to  the  unfallen  and  unsmiling  crea- 
ture, but  also  to  the  ;'  unthankful  and  the  evil," 
they  could  not  by  any  possibility  know.  Of 
his  other  perfections  they  could  have  but  very 
little  knowledge,  if  any  at  all.  They  could 
not  tell  if  he  were  immutable,  when  nothing 
had  occurred  to  put  his  immutability  to  the 
test.  For  the  same  reason,  they  could  not  tell 
if  he  were  inflexibly  just,  unchangeably  true, 
infinitely  and  unalterably  holy.  They  might 


12  THE    INCARNATION. 

be  able  to  prove,  by  abstract  reasonings,  the 
probability  that  he  possessed  these  perfections ; 
but  these  proofs  would  be  just  similar  in  their 
nature  to  the  proof  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  by  Plato  or  Seneca — a  fine  speculation, 
but  producing  no  such  conviction  as  to  become 
a  living  active  principle,  to  be  held  fast  and 
acted  upon,  and  carried  out  to  its  practical  re- 
sults, at  the  expense  of  all  that  is  dear  in  life, 
or  at  the  expense  of  life  itself. 

These  perfections,  in  order  to  be  fully 
known,  must  be  seen  carried  out  into  actual 
operation,  and  operating  too,  under  such  circum- 
stances as  to  prove  them  to  be  absolutely  infinite. 
Of  his  mercy,  it  is  obvious,  that  they  could  not 
possibly  have  any  idea  whatever.  A  large 
family  living  under  the  eye  of  a  father,  whom 
not  one  of  them  has  ever  offended,  may  have 
a  considerable  knowledge  of  his  character ; 
yet  that  knowledge  must  be  imperfect  and 
defective.  They  cannot  tell  to  what  extent 
his  truth,  his  justice,  his  goodness  may  go  ; 
because  nothing  has  occurred  which  could 
afford  an  occasion  of  trying,  of  limiting  or 
restraining  the  exercise  of  these  qualities.  But 
let  some  individual  of  the  family  offend  him, 
and  then,  in  his  treatment  of  that  individual, 
all  the  rest  of  the  family,  as  well  as  the 
offender  himself,  will  obtain  a  new  view,  and 


THE   INCARNATION.  13 

consequently  a  more  extended  knowledge  of 
his  character.  While  the  prodigal  son  dwelt 
beneath  his  father's  roof,  he  knew  well  the 
goodness  of  his  father's  heart.  But  he  did 
not  know  the  whole  extent  of  that  goodness. 
When  pining  in  want  and  misery,  he  resolved 
to  return  to  his  father's  house, — to  be  received 
and  treated  as  a  hired  servant,  and  that  only 
on  the  most  lowly  confession  of  his  errors, 
was  all  the  extent  to  which  he  dared  to  hope 
that  his  father's  goodness  could  go.  But  when 
his  return  was  welcomed  with  joy  and  glad- 
ness, when  he  felt  his  father's  embrace,  saw 
himself  arrayed  in  the  richest  robes,  and 
feasted  in  the  most  sumptuous  mariner,  then 
did  he  feel  convinced  that  his  father  possessed 
a  goodness,  the  existence  of  which  he  did  not 
dare  previously  to  believe.  Even  so  the  great 
Father  of  all,  whose  prerogative  it  is  to  bring 
good  out  of  evil,  hath,  out  of  the  ruin  of  the 
human  race,  drawn  an  exhibition  of  his  own 
character,  from  which  angels,  not  less  than 
men,  acquire  new  views  and  more  extended 
knowledge  of  it.  And  as  that  knowledge 
constitutes  the  very  end  and  aim  of  their 
being,  therefore,  though  possibly  no  danger 
might  result  to  them  from  our  fall,  yet  their 
glory  and  happiness  have  received,  and  will 
2 


14  THE  INCARNATION. 

receive,  an  incalculable  augmentation  from  our 
redemption. 

With  the  commencement  of  moral  evil,  then, 
whatever  was  its  origin,  commenced  a  new 
and  glorious  development  of  the  divine  per- 
fections. When  part  of  the  angels  sinned, 
and  for  their  sin  were  doomed  to  punishment, 
being  driven  out  from  the  presence  of  the 
Lord,  and  from  the  glory  of  his  power,  then 
God  was  seen  in  a  new  relation,  and  an  addi- 
tional view  of  his  character  would  be  given. 
Something  would  be  known  of  him,  that  was 
not  known  before.  But  then  this  knowledge, 
like  most  other  pieces  of  knowledge  in  intel- 
ligent minds,  would  give  rise  to  some  doubts, 
and  to  questions  not  easy  to  be  solved.  Some 
illustration  of  God's  displeasure  against  sin, 
and  of  his  power  to  punish  it  would  be  given  ; 
and  they  would  feel  that  even  though  possessed 
of  angelic  excellence,  they  must  obey  or  suf- 
fer. But  then  they  would,  for  the  first  time 
know  sin,  of  which  before  its  actual  existence 
among  them,  they  probably  had  not  even  an 
idea.  And  that  idea  would  necessarily  be 
attended  with  a  painful  feeling,* — the  feeling 

*  This  is  perhaps  too  strongly  expressed.  We  can 
scarcely  conceive  of  perfectly  holy  beings  subject  to  painful 
feelings  of  insecurity.  The  same  objection  may,  perhaps, 
be  urged  against  some  previous  expressions,  in  which  it  is 


THE  INCARNATION.  15 

of  insecurity-  The  offenders,  it  is  true,  were 
driven  out,  but  they  now  knew,  what  probably 
they  knew  not  before,  that  they  were  liable  to 
sin  and  to  punishment ;  and  we  may  easily 
conceive  how  such  a  knowledge  would  affect 
their  happiness.  Their  perfect  and  unsuspi- 
cious confidence  in,  and  reliance  upon  each 
other,  would  be  abated.  The  same  cause  that 
had  already  introduced  sin  among  them,  might 
produce  the  same  effect  again,  and  by  succes- 
sive defections,  the  throne  of  God  might  be 
left  without  a  worshipper.  And  it  would  natu- 
rally occur  to  them  to  inquire,  how  it  happened 
that  sin  could  enter  into  the  dominions  of  God 
at  all  ?  If  he  were  perfectly  holy,  then  must 
he  hate  sin;  and  if  he  were  omniscient  and 
omnipotent,  why  did  he  not  foresee  and  prevent 
that,  which,  as  holy,  he  must  hate  ?  And  these 
are  questions,  to  the  solution  of  which,  there  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  could  make  any 

represented  as  impossible  for  creatures  to  know  any  thing  of 
the  attributes  of  God,  except  by  seeing  their  operations ; 
since  it  is  manifest  that  God  could  make  himself  known  by 
direct  revelation.  The  main  idea,  however,  is  undoubtedly 
correct  in  both  cases.  The  attributes  of  God  are  chiefly 
known  by  being  seen  in  actual  operation,  and  every  new 
exhibition  of  his  immutability,  and  his  goodness,  would  give 
a  new  feeling  of  security,  and  additional  happiness  to  his 
holy  creatures.  The  bible  itself  in  making  known  to  us 
what  God  is,  accomplishes  the  end  chiefly  by  relating 
what  he  does. — (Editor.) 


16  THE   INCARNATION. 

thing  like  a  near  approach.  Hence  painful 
fears  and  doubts  would  be  the  result  of  the 
first  appearance  of  sin  in  heaven. 

When  they  saw  man  made,  a  part  of  their 
fears  would  be   removed.     They   would   see 
that  there  could  be  no  room  to  fear,  that  though 
all  angels  should  rebel,  "  heaven  should  want 
inhabitants,    or  God   want  praise."     But   the 
first  step  in  the  providence  of  God,  the  fall  of 
man,  would  bring  back  all  their  fears  with  in- 
creased pressure.     Was  God   really   so  little 
able  to  resist  the  rebels,  that  he  could  not  up- 
hold his  own  fair  workmanship  from  being  led 
away  captive  by  them  ?     When  they  saw  Sa- 
tan become  the  god  of  this  world,  would  not 
the  power,  and  other  perfections  of  God  stand 
greatly  in  doubt  ?     The  sons  of  God  shouted 
for  joy  when  man  was  made  ;   and  that  shout 
was  expressive,  not    simply    of   adoration   at 
seeing  a  new  exhibition  of  their  Maker's  power, 
but  also  of  the  delight  which  they  felt  at  hav- 
ing, by  this  exhibition  of  his  power,  so  many 
of  those  fears  removed,  which  the  entrance  of 
sin  had  awakened.     And  proportioned  to  the 
delight  which  they  felt,  and  expressed  at  man's 
creation,  would  necessarily  be  the  consterna- 
tion with   which  they  beheld  his  fall.     And 
when  they  heard  it  declared  that  man,  though 
fallen,  and  taken  captive  by  Satan,   yet  was 


THE  INCARNATION.  17 

not  to  be  lost,  what  would  be  the  result  of 
such  a  declaration  ?  Just  new  doubts,  and  new 
fears.  They  would  naturally  ask,  what  new 
thing  is  this  ?  or  how  can  it  possibly  be  ? 
When  angels  fell  they  were  driven  away  in 
their  wickedness,  and  no  hope  of  restoration 
was  held  out  to  them ;  yet  they  still  possessed 
so  much  power  as  to  have  carried  away  man 
into  rebellion,  and  now  he  is  not  to  die,  even 
after  the  sentence  denounced,  "  In  the  day 
thou  eatest  thou  shalt  surely  die."*  Was  God 
to  prove  himself  regardless  of  his  truth,  by 
recalling  the  sentence  so  solemnly  pronounced  ? 
Was  he  to  abandon  his  own  holy  law  to  vio- 
lation, and  his  authority  to  contempt,  by  ex- 
tending mercy  to  the  transgressors  1  Was 
the  majesty  of  the  divine  government  to  be 
insulted  with  impunity  ?  and  was  the  holiness 
of  God  to  stoop  to  hold  communion  with  that 
which  was  polluted  ?  In  short,  was  God  to 
prove  that  immutability  formed  no  part  of  his 
character  1  If  he  was  destitute  of  any  one  of 
these  perfections,  or  if  he  possessed  any  one 
of  them  only  in  a  limited  degree,  and  if  angels 
were  about  to  see  that  limit  reached,  then  their 

*  Adam  did  die  on  the  day  that  he  sinned,  and  angels 
knew  this.  But  this  just  increased  the  difficulty,  for 
how  were  creatures  already  dead  in  sin  to  be  revived  and 
restored? 

2* 


18  THE  INCARNATION. 

happiness  was  gone.  His  immutability  stood 
most  in  doubt,  and  most  of  all  was  it  necessary 
that  they  should  be  well  assured  of  this.  For 
what  other  security  had  they  for  the  continu- 
ance of  their  happiness,  than  just  this,  that  he 
who  had  made  them,  and  bestowed  that  happi- 
ness upon  them,  was  a  being  who  could  not 
change?  Let  this  once  be  made  doubtful,  and 
then,  in  addition  to  the  feeling  of  insecurity 
arising  from  a  sense  of  their  own  liability  to 
sin,  they  would  experience  the  still  more  pain- 
ful feeling  of  insecurity  derived  from  the  mu- 
tability of  the  divine  character. 

But  then  how  could  man  be  pardoned  and 
saved,  without  all  these  painful  consequences 
being  the  result  ?  God  had  most  positive- 
ly declared,  that  on  the  day  in  which  he 
transgressed  he  should  die.  Could  that  sen- 
tence be  reversed,  or  even  its  execution  sus- 
pended, without  creating  some  question  as  to 
how  far  his  truth  might  be  relied  upon  ?  If  the 
law  of  God  was  violated,  and  the  authority  of 
God  trampled  upon,  with  not  merely  impunity, 
but  with  favour  to  the  transgressor,  was  not 
this  in  effect  to  abrogate  that  law?  Even 
under  the  Christian  dispensation,  which  so  aw- 
fully demonstrates  the  sanctity  of  the  law.  how 
difficult  is  it  to  prevent  men  from  "  turning  the 
grace  of  God  into  Iasciviousncss3"  and  from 


THE  INCARNATION.  19 

sinning,  "  because  grace  abounds  ?"  But  had 
God  forgiven  men,  without  any  demonstration 
of  the  holiness,  and  the  unalterable  nature  of 
the  law,  this  would  have  been  just  to  set  open 
a  flood  gate  for  the  introduction  of  all  iniquity. 
That  God  could,  by  a  mere  act  of  power,  or,  as 
it  ought  rather  to  be  called  in  this  case,  offeree, 
have  rescued  the  sinner  from  the  grasp  of  Sa- 
tan, and  have  created  him  anew,  and  have  re- 
instated him  in  higher  happiness  than  that  from 
which  he  fell,  may  be  perfectly  true.  But 
what  then  became  of  his  moral  attributes'? 
Who  among  his  unfallcn  children,  could  have 
in  this  case  avoided  the  conclusion  that  he  was 
an  unholy,  an  unjust,  a  mutable,  nay,  a  capri- 
cious being  ?  And  such  an  act  of  power,  while 
it  might  have  been  an  act  of  great  mercy  to- 
wards the  guilty,  would  at  the  same  time  have 
been  an  act  of  great  cruelty  towards  the 
innocent. 

We  are  often  told  that  it  is  an  easy  thing 
for  God  to  forgive  sin — that  there  is  nothing  to 
prevent  him  from  withdrawing  his  right  to 
punish  the  guilty,  and  that  such  an  act  of  grace 
would  highly  illustrate  his  goodness,  and 
awaken  songs  of  praise  among  both  angels 
and  men.  Nothing,  however,  can  well  be 
more  evident  than  the  truth  of  the  very  reverse 
of  this.  Among  men  such  an  act  of  grace 


20  THE    INCARNATION. 

would  have  been,  and  could  have  been  pro- 
ductive of  nothing  else  than  the  most  unbridled 
licentiousness;  and  among  angels  of  nothing 
but  consternation  and  dismay ;  and  an  act  of 
mercy  so  exercised  would  have  defeated  all 
the  purposes  of  mercy.  Every  sinner  thus 
rescued  by  an  act  of  omnipotent  power,  not 
from  the  grasp  of  Satan,  but  from  the  sentence 
of  God's  most  holy  law,  would  have  been  just 
a  new  monument  of  a  mutable  God,  and  of  a 
despised  law,  and  instead  of  being  hailed  on 
his  entrance  into  heaven  with  songs  of  joy, 
would  have  been  received  with  expressions  of 
jealousy  and  fear.  It  is  easy,  it  is  said,  for 
God  to  depart  from  his  right  to  punish  ;  but 
by  whom  is  this  said  1  By  men  who  have 
never  been  convicted  of  sin,  who  know  not  how 
exceedingly  sinful  a  thing  it  is,  who  know 
nothing  of  the  extent  and  spirituality  of  the  law 
of  God,  and  have  never  felt  their  need  of  and 
dependence  upon  a  Saviour.  Ask  you  the 
awakened  sinner  who  has  felt  the  terrors  of  the 
law  coming  like  water  into  his  bowels,  and 
like  oil  into  his  bones,  if  he  thinks  it  an  easy 
thing  for  God  to  forgive  sin?  He  will  tell 
you  that  when  a  violated  law  set  all  his  sins  in 
array  before  him,  and  when  conscience  con- 
firmed the  sentence  of  the  law,  so  far  was  he 
from  thinking  it  an  easy  thing  for  God  to  for- 


THE    INCARNATION.  21 

give  his  sins,  that  hardly  all  the  grace  mani- 
fested in  the  Gospel  could  persuade  him  to 
believe  it  possible,  that  even  with  God  there 
was  an  extent  of  mercy  sufficient  to  forgive 
his  sins  ;  that  while  he  felt  no  difficulty  in  be- 
lieving the  general  proposition,  that  with  God 
there  is  mercy  for  sinners,  he  feels  that  nothing 
but  a  divine  power  could  have  enabled  him  to 
apply  the  general  proposition  to  his  own  par- 
ticular case,  and  to  believe  that  there  was  mercy 
in  God  sufficient  for  him.  It  is  easy,  we  are 
told,  and  told  often,  for  God,  by  a  mere  act  of 
grace  to  pardon,  and  by  a  mere  act  of  power  to 
regenerate  and  save  sinners.  It  is  easy  for  him 
to  forego  his  right  to  punish  the  transgressor. 
But  it  is  not  seen,  nor,  save  by  the  awakened 
sinner,  can  be  seen,  that,  in  so  doing,  he  fore- 
goes all  the  inflexibility  of  his  justice,  all  the 
sacredness  of  his  truth,  all  the  sanctity  of  bis 
law,  all  the  spotless  purity  of  his  holiness,  and 
all  the  majesty  of  his  government,  and  his  de- 
stroying all  the  security  that  is  founded  on  the 
immutability  of  his  character.  Moreover,  the 
pardon  of  sin,  without  any  manifestation  of  its 
hatefulness,  or  of  the  perfections  of  God,  would 
have  brought  both  his  wisdom  and  his  power 
into  question.  For  surely  it  would  have  ex- 
hibited much  more  of  both  to  sustain  man  from 
falling  at  all,  than  to  leave  him  to  fall,  merely 


22  THE    INCARNATION. 

in  order  to  rescue  him  from  its  effects,  by  an  ex- 
ercise of  power  put  forth  at  the  expense  of  all  his 
moral  attributes  ;  while  all  the  lessons  taught  by 
the  work  of  Redemption,  for  the  sake  of  which 
the  world  was  made,  and  man  upon  it,  would  not 
only  have  been  entirely  lost,  but  it  would  have 
been  impossible  to  determine  why  some  men 
were  saved,  and  others  left  to  perish — why 
grace  was  offered  to  one  fallen  race,  and 
none  offered  to  another ;  and  it  would  in- 
deed have  been  a  question  which  defied  solu- 
tion, for  what  one  useful  purpose  could  such 
a  being  as  man  possibly  have  been  made  1 
The  Jews  erred  grievously  when  they  sup- 
posed that  the  dispensation,  of  which  they  were 
the  recipients,  terminated  in  themselves,  and 
was  given  them,  not  for  the  sake,  but  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  nations.  And  we  carry 
the  same  error  to  a  much  more  pernicious  ex- 
tent, and  still  more  effectually  mar  the  glory  of 
the  work  of  redemption,  when  we  consider  that 
work  as  terminating  in  man — when  we  con- 
sider ourselves  as  an  insulated  race,  and  not 
as  beings  intimately  connected  with,  and  made 
for  the  sake  of  all  the  rational  family  of  God. 
Had  no  nation  been  to  be  blessed  but  the  Jews, 
the  Jews  wrould  never  have  been  chosen  ;  and 
had  no  being  been  to  profit  by  the  work  of 
redemption  but  man,  it  seems  impossible  to 


THE    INCARNATION.  23 

conceive  one  rational  purpose  that  could  be 
answered,  by  such  a  creature  as  man  being 
made  at  all. 

It  was  then  when  it  was  declared  that  fallen 
man  should  be  saved,  and  when  it  appeared 
not  how  that  salvation  could  be  effected  with- 
out the  most  disastrous  consequences  to  the 
whole  universe,  without  casting  doubt  and  dis- 
trust upon  all  the  perfections  of  God,  and  upon 
all  the  principles  of  his  divine  government, 
that  the  great  mystery  of  Redemption,  into 
which  angels  desire  to  look,  and  from  which 
they  learn  wisdom,  began  to  run  its  mighty 
course.  It  was  then  that  the  eternal  Word 
was  announced  as  the  Saviour  of  the  fallen 
race,  who  should  rescue  them  from  their  thral- 
dom, in  a  way  which  should  not  only  cast  no 
doubt  over  the  perfections  of  God,  but  should 
afford  the  most  glorious  illustration  of  all  these 
perfections, — who  should  not  only  reconcile, 
but  continue  in  the  most  indissoluble  union, 
these  apparently  most  irreconcilable  things, 
the  glory  of  God,  and  the  safety  of  sinful  men 
— who  should  unite,  in  most  harmonious  agree- 
ment, these  apparent  contraries,  the  mercy 
that  pleaded  for  the  sinner's  safety,  with  the 
truth  which  demanded  his  punishment,  the 
righteousness  that  condemned  him,  with  the 
peace  that  was  promised  him.  The  Son  was 


24  THE    INCARNATION. 

announced  as  the  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King 
of  the  human  race,  and  the  first  acts  belonging 
to  all  these  characters  he  performed  person- 
ally- He,  as  prophet,  announced  to  man  the 
hope  of  deliverance  through  the  "  woman's 
seed."  As  priest  he  appointed  sacrifices  as 
typical  of  his  own  death  for  sinners,  and  cloth- 
ed our  first  parents  with  the  skins  of  slain 
beasts  instead  of  their  own  fig  leaves,  as  a 
token  that  he  would  cover  their  spiritual  naked- 
ness by  the  perfection  of  his  own  righteous- 
ness.* And  as-  a  king  he  sent  them  forth  to 
cultivate  the  ground  until  they  should  return 
to  the  dust  whence  they  came.  These  offices, 
thus  formally  and  personally  undertaken  by  the 
Son,  were  thenceforth  delegated  to  his  repre- 
sentatives, till  the  fulness  of  time  should  ar- 
rive for  his  coming  in  the  flesh.  To  what  ex- 
tent the  knowledge  of  men  or  of  angels,  as  to 
the  nature  of  these  offices  might  then  go,  we 
have  no  means  of  ascertaining ;  but  this  we 
know,  that  at  that  period  commenced,  and,  in 
the  evolution  of  the  work  of  Redemption,  wras 
gradually  unfolded,  for  the  instruction  of  both, 

*  This  may  appear  rather  a  wild  interpretation  of  this 
transaction.  If  so,  it  is  only  the  more  suitable  for  the  pre- 
sent age.  However,  we  should  hardly,  perhaps,  have  ven- 
tured to  put  it  down,  had  we  not  seen  it  sanctioned  by  sorne 
sober  and  able  writers ;  among  others  by  Benson,  in  his 
Hulsean  lectures  on  Scripture  Difficulties. 


THE    INCARNATION.  25 

nn  exhibition  of  the  glory  of  God's  perfections, 
of  the  majesty  of  God's  government,  and  of 
the  sanctity  of  God's  law,  far  beyond  aught 
that  could  have  been  derived  either  from  the 
sinless  obedience,  or  the  endless  punishment 
of  all  created  beings. 

It  may  perhaps  be  said,  that  a  considerable 
portion  of  what  we  have  now  been  stating, 
rests  upon  no  better  a  foundation  than  conjec- 
ture, and  consequently,  however  plausible  it 
may  be,  cannot  be  relied  on  as  certainly  true. 
But  we  think  that,  on  a  very  little  considera- 
tion, all  that  we  have  assumed,  at  least  all  that 
is  in  any  way  essential  to  our  view,  will  be 
readily  granted.  It  will,  we  suppose,  be  grant- 
ed that  the  invisible  and  incomprehensible  God, 
who  dwelleth  in  unapproachable  light,  can  be 
known  to  angels,  only  in  the  same  way  in 
which  he  is  known  to  us,  namely,  by  the  con- 
templation of  his  works  and  ways  ;  and  that  his 
perfections  could  be  very  imperfectly  known, 
till  they  were  seen  in  actual  exercise.  It  will, 
we  suppose,  be  farther  admitted,  that  angels 
are  just  as  deeply  interested  as  we  are,  in  see- 
ing the  perfections  of  God  vindicated  from  all 
the  doubt  and  suspicion  which  were  attached 
to  them  by  the  entrance  of  sin  into  his  do- 
minions. And  if,  finally,  it  be  admitted  that 
nothing  that  we  know,  or  can  form  any  con- 
3 


26  THE    INCARNATION. 

ception  of,  forms  so  glorious  a  manifestation 
of  the  perfections  of  God,  as  the  work  of  man's 
Redemption,  and  that  that  work  was  designed 
by  God  for  this  very  purpose,  then  we  see  not 
that  we  have  assumed  any  thing  that  can  be 
denied.  If  on  any  minor  point  our  readers 
differ  from  us,  we  can  have  no  dispute  with 
them  on  the  subject,  for  it  affects  not  our  ge- 
neral views. 

We  hold  it  indisputable  that  before  the  In- 
carnation, when  Christ  came  personally  to  ex- 
ecute the  offices  of  prophet,  priest,  and  king, 
as  far  as  the  execution  of  them  on  earth  was 
necessary,  the  angels  had  a  much  clearer  view 
of  the  nature  of  the  work  which  he  came  to  do, 
than  men  had.  For  that  work,  being  intended 
for  their  benefit  as  well  as  ours,  was  doubtless 
to  them  the  object  of  most  interesting  study ; 
and  though  no  revelation  of  its  nature  had  been 
made  to  them,  beyond  what  was  made  to  man, 
and  we  know  of  no  reason  to  suppose  that  there 
was,  yet  we  take  it  for  granted  that  they  under- 
stood much  better  than  men,  the  meaning  of  the 
types  and  shadows  of  the  preparatory  dispensa- 
tions, and  the  predictions  of  the  prophets.  But 
still,  though  they  understood  better  than  men 
what  Christ  was  about  to  do  on  earth,  they 
could  have  but  a  very  imperfect  and  inadequate 
conception  of  it  till  they  saw  it  actually  done. 


THE    INCARNATION.  27 

Let  us  then  consider  what  Christ  came  to  do 
in  the  flesh ;  and  this  will  lead  us  at  once  to  see, 
both  the  necessity  of  the  Incarnation,  and  also 
the  necessity  that,  when  he  took  flesh,  it  should 
be  not  sinful  flesh,  but  flesh  completely  and 
totally  alienated  from  all  sinfulness.  He  came, 
as  we  have  already  stated,  to  execute  the  offi- 
ces of  prophet,  priest  and  king. 

CHRIST  OUR  PROPHET. 

Let  us  look  then  to  Christ  as  our  prophet. 
His  duty  in  the  discharge  of  this  office,  was  to 
reveal  unto  us  the  Father,  as  he  saith,  "  Nei- 
ther knoweth  any  man  the  Father,  save  the  Son, 
and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  will  reveal  him," 
and  again  it  is  said,  "  No  man  hath  seen  God 
at  any  time,  the  only-begotten  Son,  which  is  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Father,  he  hath  declared  him." 
Now  how  did  Christ  reveal  to  us  the  Father? 
Not  by  any  set  proofs  of  his  existence,  nor  by 
any  abstract  discussions  upon  his  nature  or 
character,  nor  by  didactic  discourses,  but  by 
action  ;  a  mode  of  instruction  as  level  to  the 
comprehension  of  the  meanest  capacity,  as  to 
that  of  the  loftiest,  as  intelligible  to  the  peasant 
as  to  the  philosopher.  He  taught  us,  for  exam- 
ple, that  God  is  holy.  But  how  did  he  do  this? 
Not  by  any  set  dissertations  on  the  holiness  of 
God,  but  by  the  unceasing  and  spotless  holi- 


28  THE    INCARNATION. 

ness  of  his  own  conduct.  Never  were  allure- 
ments more  enticing  than  those  by  which  he 
was  sometimes  solicited,  and  never  were  trials 
more  severe  than  those  to  which  he  was  com- 
monly exposed,  and  never  were  testimonies  so 
numerous,  unequivocal,  and  decisive,  as  those 
by  which  it  is  proved  that  by.no  allurement 
was  he  ever  enticed,  by  no  trial  was  he  ever 
pressed  into  a  deviation,  or  into  the  manifesta- 
tion of  a  wish  to  deviate,  from  the  path  of  duty. 
Not  only  could  he  himself  challenge  his  bitter- 
est foes  to  convince  him  of  sin,  but  the  testi- 
mony of  his  friends  and  foes  alike  concurs  to 
assure  us  that  he  "did  no  sin,"  and  that  in  his 
mouth  guile  was  not  found.  In  the  same  man- 
ner he  teaches  us  that  God  is  good,  not  by  any 
regular  proofs  of  this  in  his  discourses,  but  by 
the  constant  exhibition  of  it  in  his  practice. 
When  the  infirm  and  the  distressed  applied  to 
him,  the  application  was  never  made  in  vain. 
He  never  said  to  the  applicant,  you  are  of  too 
abandoned  a  character  for  notice,  and  richly 
deserve  all  the  misery  you  endure,  or,  your 
disease  is  of  too  desperate  a  nature,  or  of  too 
long  standing  to  admit  of  relief.  No,  but  his 
language  was,  "If  thou  canst  believe,  all  things 
are  possible  to  him  that  believeth."  And  while 
he  was  literally  fulfilling  the  prediction  which 
thus  spoke  of  the  blessings  of  his  coming, — 


THE    INCARNATION.  29 

"Then  the  eyes  of  the  blind  shall  be  opened, 
and  the  ears  of  the  deaf  shall  be  unstopped : 
then  shall  the  lame  man  leap  as  an  hart,  and 
the  tongue  of  the  dumb  shall  sing ; "  he  was, 
in  so  doing,  giving  proof  of  his  power  and  his 
readiness  to  give  a  far  higher  accomplishment 
to  this  happy  prediction,  by  healing  the  spiritual 
diseases,  of  which  those  of  the  body  were  only 
feeble,  however  painful  symptoms.  And  when 
he  went  about  doing  good,  and  healing  all  man- 
ner of  disease,  we  are  expressly  taught  that  the 
design  of  his  so  doing  was  to  lead  men  to  ap- 
ply to  him  for  blessings  of  a  higher  order,  and 
to  convince  them  of  his  power  and  readiness 
to  confer  these  blessings.  Thus,  when  the 
scribes  murmured  at  hearing  him  say  to  the 
man  who  was  sick  of  the  palsy,  "  Son,  be  of 
good  cheer ;  thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee,"  he  asked 
them,  "  Whether  is  it  easier  to  say,  Thy  sins 
be  forgiven  thee  ;  or  to  say,  Arise  and  walk  7" 
very  plainly  intimating  that  he  who  had  the 
power  and  the  will  to  do  the  one,  had  no  less 
the  power  and  the  will  to  do  the  other,  a  truth 
which  he  proceeded  still  more  directly  to  teach, 
saying, — "  But  that  ye  may  know  that  the  Son 
of  man  hath  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins, 
(then  saith  he  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy,)  Arise, 
take  up  thy  bed,  and  go  unto  thine  house." 
Here  ability  to  command  the  sick  man  to  arise 
3* 


30  THE    INCARNATION. 

and  walk,  is,  by  our  Lord  himself,  adduced  as 
a  convincing  proof  of  his  power  to  forgive  sin. 
Now,  he  who  exhibited  this  unceasing  holi- 
ness, and  this  unlimited  goodness,  was  God 
with  us,  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh."  And 
such  as  he  was  in  the  world,  even  such  is  God. 
If  we  wish  to  know  the  character  of  God,  we 
shall  find  it  revealed  there,  where  the  life  of 
Jesus  is  recorded.  Hence,  the  following  most 
distinct  language  is  used  by  our  Lord  himself 
on  this  subject :  "  If  ye  had  known  me;  ye  should 
have  known  my  Father  also  :  and  from  hence- 
forth ye  know  him,  and  have  seen  him.  Philip 
saith  unto  him,  Lord,  show  us  the  Father,  and 
it  sufficeth  us.  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Have  I 
been  so  long  time  with  you,  and  yet  hast  thou 
not  known  me,  Philip  1  He  that  hath  seen  me 
hath  seen  the  Father ;  and  how  sayest  thou 
then,  show  us  the  Father  ?"  Hence,  too,  when 
we  are  called  upon  to  combat  the  fears  that 
take  possession  of  the  awakened  soul,  and  the 
arguments  which  ignorance  and  unbelief  raise 
up,  in  the  heart  of  the  convinced  sinner,  against 
faith  and  hope,  we  find  the  record  of  our  Sa- 
viour's life  a  good  and  an  efficient  ground,  on 
which  they  may  be  combated.  We  just  say 
to  the  sinner  under  these  circumstances,  He, 
whose  goodness  was  so  unlimited,  was  God 
manifested  in  the  flesh,  and  manifested  there 


THE     INCARNATION.  31 

that  we  might  see  with  our  own  eyes,  and  have 
the  most  perfect  knowledge  of  the  gracious 
dispositions  of  God  toward  us.  If  you  say  that 
you  admit  the  general  proposition,  that  there  is 
mercy  with  God  for  sinners,  but  dare  not  spe- 
cifically apply  the  proposition  to  your  own  in- 
dividual case,  and  hope  that  there  is  mercy  for 
you,  then  we  say  that  you  are  negativing  not 
only  his  manifold  and  gracious  declarations, 
whereby  he  encourages  the  weary  and  the  heavy 
laden  to  come  to  him,  that  they  may  find  peace 
and  rest ;  but  you  are  negativing  the  import  of 
the  lesson  taught  by  the  whole  course  of  his 
conduct.  For,  from  that  exercise  of  inconceiva- 
ble goodness  which  he  manifested  when,  leav- 
ing the  glory  which  he  had  with  the  Father 
before  the  world  began,  he  condescended  to 
become  obnoxious  to  every  suffering  that  human 
nature  knows,  in  that  flesh  which  he  took  into 
personal  union  with  himself,  down  to  that  other 
equally  inconceivable  exercise  of  goodness 
which  he  manifested  when  he  bowed  his  head 
and  gave  up  the  ghost,  giving  his  own  life  for 
that  of  a  lost  world,  what  one  act  in  the  whole 
course  of  his  earthly  existence  is  not  in  most 
perfect  accordance  with  the  grace  and  the  good- 
ness which  distinguished  alike  its  commence- 
ment and  its  close  ?  What  wretch  ever  applied 
to  him  and  was  sent  away  unrelieved '?  Whom 


32  THE    INCARNATION. 

did  he  ever  ask,  by  what  right,  or  on  the  ground 
of  what  merit  they  laid  claim  to  his  interposi- 
tion in  their  favour  /  Whom  did  he  ever  reproach 
with  the  guilt  that  had  brought  their  miseries 
upon  them  1  If  he  healed  the  sick,  and  raised 
the  dead,  if  out  of  one  he  cast  seven  devils,  and 
dispossessed  another  of  a  whole  legion,  it  was 
just  for  the  purpose  of  convincing  you  that  there 
is  no  limit  either  to  his  power  or  his  willingness 
to  heal  your  spiritual  sickness,  to  quicken  you 
from  your  death  in  sin.  He  asks  no  question 
as  to  the  past.  lie  asks  not  if  you  be  loaded 
with  the  sins  of  a  few  days,  or  with  the  sins  of 
many  years.  He  asks  not  if  your  crimes  be 
few  or  many,  slight  or  aggravated.  They  all 
lie  equally  within  the  compass  of  his  power ; 
and  his  only  question  is,  ;'  Wilt  thou  be  made 
whole  ?"  If,  for  a  moment  he  refused  the  wo- 
man of  Syrophenicia,  it  was  only  to  teach  you 
the  happy  effect  of  persevering  and  importu- 
nate prayer.  If  he  refused  her  for  a  moment, 
it  was  only  the  more  emphatically  to  teach  this 
truth,  that  he  will  never  refuse, — that  ivlioso- 
ever  cometh  unto  him  shall  not  be  denied. 

In  the  same  manner  was  the  holiness  of  God 
displayed  in  the  life  of  him  in  whom  dwelt  all 
the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily.  And  if  the 
life  of  Christ,  was  just  a  living  manifestation  of 
all  the  perfections  of  God,  and  if  we  know 


THE    INCARNATION.  33 

God,  just  because  God  has  dwelt  in  the  flesh 
amongst  us,  then  is  it  obvious,  not  merely  that 
the  Son  who  became  our  prophet  to  reveal  unto 
us  the  Father,  must  of  necessity  become  flesh, 
since  in  no  other  way  that  we  know  could  he 
make  that  revelation  ;  but  it  is  not  less  obvi- 
ously necessary  that  the  flesh  which  he  took 
should  be  perfectly  holy,  else  it  is  not  conceiva- 
ble how  his  life  could  afford  us  any  exhibition 
of  the  holiness  of  God.  He  might  have  showed 
to  us  the  holiness  of  a  man,  such  as  Abraham 
or  Moses,  carried  to  a  still  higher  degree  of 
perfection,  even  to  the  extent  of  avoiding  all 
actual  transgression  of  the  law  of  God.  But 
if  his  flesh  was  really  sinful,  if  it  even  felt  the 
slightest  propensity  or  inclination  to  sin, — an 
inclination  which  required  to  be  repressed,  in 
order  to  prevent  it  from  proceeding  to  actual 
guilt,  then  this  propensity  was  itself,  at  least  in 
our  view  of  the  matter,  criminal,  and  effectually 
disqualified  him  for  giving  any  practical  reve- 
lation of  the  divine  holiness  in  his  life.  The  in- 
clination of  his  flesh  to  sinful  indulgence  might 
be  in  him  kept  as  "  a  spring  shut  up,  and  a 
fountain  sealed,"  from  which  no  emanation  of 
actual  guilt  was  ever  permitted  to  proceed. 
The  inclination  of  the  flesh  might  be  so  power- 
fully and  successfully  repressed,  that  it  might 
be  truly  said  of  him  in  whom  it  dwelt,  that  he 


34  THE    INCARNATION. 

"  did  no  sin  ; "  but  with  what  truth  it  could  be 
said  of  him,  whose  whole  life  was  an  unceas- 
ing, however  successful  struggle,  against  the 
will  .of  the  flesh,  compelling  "the  flesh  against 
its  will,"  into  however  perfect  a  harmony  with 
the  will  of  God,  that  he  "k?ievj  no  sin,"  is  alto- 
gether beyond  our  comprehension.  If  such 
inclination  existed,  however  successfully  sub- 
dued, it  existed  as  the  germ  of  all  actual  trans- 
gression,— as  containing  in  it  the  elements  of 
all  human  guilt, — as  the  object  of  just  wrath, 
and  deserved  punishment, — as  that  which  can 
be  rendered  fit  for  communion  with  God,  only 
through  that  shedding  of  blood,  without  which 
there  can  be  no  remission,  and  consequently 
totally  depriving  him  in  whom  it  existed,  of  all 
claim  to  the  title,  and  of  all  power  to  accom- 
plish the  purposes,  of  a  "  Lamb  without  blem- 
ish, and  without  spot." 

But  in  order  to  see  all  the  fulness  with  which 
he  discharged  the  duties  resulting  from  his 
prophetic  character,  and  to  learn  from  his  dis- 
charge of  them  all,  the  knowledge  which  it  is 
intended  and  fitted  to  convey,  we  must  look, 
not  merely  to  his  life,  but  still  more  especially 
to  his  death.  He  was  a  prophet  on  the  cross, 
as  well  as  a  "  priest  on  the  throne,"  and  not 
the  less  a  king  on  both.  And  whatever  know- 
ledge of  the  perfections  of  God  wre  derive  from 
the  life  of  Christ,  is  both  carried  out  to  a  great- 


THE    INCARNATION.  35 

er  extent,  and  taught  with  a  more  impressive 
emphasis,  by  his  death. 

By  his  life  we  are  taught  that  God  is  good, 
and  the  sinner  is  powerfully  encouraged  to 
come  to  him  for  pardon  and  for  peace.  But  it 
was  on  the  cross  that  he  gave  the  highest  ex- 
hibition of  the  Divine  goodness.  To  all  his 
creatures  the  goodness  of  God  was  known ; 
but  to  none  of  them  was  the  infinite  and  in- 
conceivable extent  of  that  goodness  known,  till 
Christ  died  on  -the  cross.  When  man  fell, 
had  God  freely  forgiven  the  rebel,  and  by  a 
word  restored  him  to  perfect  purity,  and  placed 
him  in  a  state  of  impeccable  stability,  this  would 
have  been  an  act  of  unexampled  goodness. 
But  as  this  act  could  by  no  possibility  be  per- 
formed, without  throwing  doubt  on  the  Divine 
perfections,  and  producing  the  most  disastrous 
consequences,  the  next  and  only  method  which 
created  reason  could  have  su^o-ested  for  the 

oo 

treatment  of  the  rebels  would  be,  to  give  up  the 
fallen  pair  to  him  to  whose  suggestions  they 
had  listened,  in  opposition  to  the  command  of 
God, — cut  off  the  stream  of  iniquity  by  drying 
up  its  source,  and  people  the  world  anew  with 
less  feeble  creatures.  But  when  they  heard  of 
the  Incarnation,  when  they  heard  that  the  Eter- 
nal Word,  who  spoke  the  world  into  being,  was 
himself  to  be  made  flesh,  and  in  the  weakness 


36  THE    INCARNATION. 

of  flesh  was  to  go  forth  into  that  world  of  which 
Satan  had  become  the  god,  and  to  meet  him  in 
his  own  domain,  and  to  contend  with  him  and 
all  his  powers  on  his  own  ground,  and  by  his 
own  deeds  and  his  own  sufferings,  to  take  away 
the  captives  of  the  mighty,  and  to  redeem  the 
prey  of  the  terrible,  and  when  they  saw  all  this 
actually  accomplished,  then  had  they  a  view  of 
the  goodness  of  God,  far  beyond  aught  that 
they  could  possibly  have  had  before.  When 
they  saw  God  willing  to  redeem  from  their 
captivity,  and  to  ransom  from  destruction, 
creatures,  whose  utter  and  final  perdition  could 
not  have  affected  his  happiness  or  glory,  with 
no  less  a  price  than  the  blood  of  his  own  well- 
beloved  Son,  it  is  no  matter  of  surprise  that 
they,  delighted  thus  to  be  assured  of  the  infi- 
nite extent  of  the  goodness  of  their  God,  should, 
as  well  as  the  redeemed  from  among  men, 
celebrate  the  death  of  Christ,  in  the  most  ex- 
alted strains  of  gratitude  and  adoration,  as  we 
are  assured  by  John  in  the  Revelation  that 
they  do,  when  he  says,  "  And  I  beheld,  and  I 
heard  the  voice  of  many  angels  round  about 
the  throne,  and  the  beasts,  and  the  elders  :  and 
the  number  of  them  was  ten  thousand  times 
ten  thousand,  and  thousands  of  thousands  ;  say- 
ing with  a  loud  voice,  Worthy  is  the  Lamb 
that  was  slain  to  receive  power,  and  riches, 


THE    INCARNATION.  37 

and  wisdom,  and  strength,  and  honour,  and 
glory,  and  blessing.    And  every  creature  which 
is  in  heaven,  and  on  the  earth,  and  under  the 
earth,  and  such  as  are  in  the  sea,  and  all  that 
are  in  them,  heard  I  saying,  Blessing,  and  hon- 
our, and  glory,   and  power  unto  him  that  sit- 
teth  upon   the  throne,  and  to  the   Lamb,  for 
ever  and  ever."*      And  well  might  the  same 
writer,   when  contemplating  the  goodness  of 
God,  as  it  is  set  forth  in  the  unspeakable  value 
of  the  price  by  which  he  purchased  our  safety, 
thus  speak  of  it,  "  In  this  was  manifested  the 
love  of  God  towards  us,   because   that  God 
sent  his  only  begotten  Son  into  the  world,  that 
we  might  live  through  him.     Herein  is  love, 
not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  he  loved  us, 
and  sent  his  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for  our 
sins."t     The  love  of  God  is  indeed  thus  mani- 
fested to  be  something,  the  extent  of  which  no 
language  may  describe,  and  no  heart  may  con- 
ceive :    and  the  redeemed  of  the  Lord,  while 
throughout  eternity   his    love    flows  forth   to 
them  in  an  ever-increasing  weight  of  glory  and 
blessedness,  will  feel  no   misgivings  lest  he 
who  thus  blesseth  them  should  grow  weary  in 
the  exercise  of  his  love,  and  should  come  to  a 
limit,   beyond  which  they  shall  not  go  in  its 

*  Rev.  v.  11.  t  Uohniv.  9. 

4 


38  THE    INCARNATION. 

enjoyment,  while  they  can  ever  look  back  to 
the  cross  of  Christ,  where  the  death  of  our 
Prophet  gave  an  ineffaceable  and  irrefragable 
demonstration  that  the  love  of  God  is  truly 
boundless,  exhaustless,  and  passing  all  under- 
standing. 

Now,  we  would  ask,  is  it  possible  that  the 
life  of  Christ,  clear,  and  distinct;  and  decisive 
as  are  the  manifestations  of  the  love  and  good- 
ness of  God  which  it  affords,  could  have  mani- 
fested that  love  and  goodness,  to  as  great  an 
extent,  or  have  given  so  impressive  and  indu- 
bitable a  demonstration  of  them  as  that  which 
we  derive  from  his  death  1  Every  reader  will, 
we  suppose,  answer,  No.  It  was  in  his  whole 
life,  but  still  more  especially  and  emphatically, 
in  his  death,  that  our  great  Prop..et  revealed 
unto  us  the  Father.  Then  he  died  as  a  pro- 
phet, not  less  than  as  a  priest ;  or,  in  other 
words,  it  was  from  his  death  as  a  sacrifice  to 
expiate  our  sins,  that  we  derive  the  highest 
instruction,  which,  as  our  prophet,  he  came  to 
teach  us.  '  We  beg  our  readers  to  keep  this 
observation  in  mind,  that,  even  as  our  Prophet, 
it  was  necessary  that  Christ  should  die,  and 
not  less  necessary  that  his  death  should  be  that 
of  an  ur.fillen,  sinless  person. 

In  the  meantime  we  go  on  to  remark,  that 
this  demonstration  of  the  love  of  God,  which 


THE    INCARNATION.  39 

was  given  in  the  death  of  Christ,  becomes 
much   more    distinct    and    impressive,    when 
viewed  in  connection  with  that  demonstration 
of  the  exceedingly  hateful  and  malignant  na- 
ture  of  sin,  which  was    given  by  the   same 
event.     When  sin  was  first  introduced  into  the 
dominions  of  God,  some  demonstration  of  its 
evil  was  given  in  the  punishment  inflicted  on 
the  offenders.     That  demonstration,  however, 
was  comparatively  trifling.     In  them  it  was 
not  immediately  punished  to  the  full  extent  of 
its  demerit,  nor  consequently  the  full  extent  of 
its  evil  shown.     And  had  these  first  offenders 
been  at  once,  and  frankly  forgiven,  could  this 
by  any  possibility  have  been  done,  it  would 
have  afforded  a  comparatively  trifling  manifes- 
tation of  the  grace  of  God.     Before  that  grace 
could  be  seen  in  all  its  glory,  sin  must  be  first 
seen  in  all  its  malignity.     And  this  could  not 
be  seen  merely  by  ihe  fall  of  angels.     One  of 
its  most  awful  characteristics,   their  fall  could 
not  show.     We  refer  to  its  generative  nature, 
— its  capability  of  being  propagated  from  race 
to  race  tl  rough  successive  generations.    What- 
ever number  of  angels  there  were  who  kept  not 
their  first  state,  each  fell  by  his  own  personal 
act,  and  to  however  many  other  sins  that  first 
sin  might  give  rise  in  the  individual,  this  was 
only  a  proof  that  sin  once  admitted  into  the  heart 


40  THE    INCARNATION. 

would  propagate  itself  there ;  but  could  give 
no  idea  of  another  fact,  which  far  more  fear- 
fully demonstrates  the  malignity  of  sin,  name- 
ly, that  sin  might  be  committed  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, as  would  render  it  just  in  God  to 
cause  the  poison  of  that  sin  to  pass  from  the 
actual  transgressor  to  unnumbered  millions  of 
other  responsible  creatures,  connected  in  a  par- 
ticular manner  with  the  transgressor,  so  as  to 
involve  them  all  in  his  guilt  and  in  his  doom. 
Till  man  fell,  and  the  result  of  his  fall  was  seen, 
it  could  not  be  known  that  such  was  the  malig- 
nity of  sin,  that  one  sin  of  one  man,  was  suf- 
ficient to  diffuse  guilt  and  misery  through  all 
generations  of  men.  One  sin  thus  committed, 
under  circumstances  which  afforded  it  an  op- 
portunity for  producing  all  its  natural  and  pro- 
per effects,  gave  a  much  more  impressive  view 
of  its  native  malignity,  than  the  fall  of  angels 
could  possibly  do.  Many  proofs  of  the  hate- 
fulness  of  sin  have  been  given,  such  as  the 
sweeping  away  of  a  guilty  world  by  the  flood, 
— the  sudden  destruction  of  the  "  cities  of  the 
plain," — the  devotion  of  the  Amorites  to  exter- 
mination, when  the  measure  of  their  iniquities 
was  full.  And  all  the  madness,  and  folly,  and 
guilt,  and  misery,  that  abound  on  earth,  and  every 
sin,  and  every  sorrow  of  every  individual,  when 
viewed,  as  it  ought  always  to  be,  in  connexion 


THE    INCARNATION.  41 

with  the  original  source  whence  it  sprung,  are 
all  affecting  and  convincing  proofs — proofs 
coming  home  to  the  bosom  of  every  man  who 
is  capable  of  feeling — how  "  evil  a  thing  and 
bitter  sin  is,"  while  they  are  proving  that  the 
"evil  figment"  of  man's  heart,  "the  root  of 
bitterness,"  is  at  this  day  as  vigorous  and  fresh, 
and  flourishing,  and  fruitful  as  it  was  at  the 
beginning ;  and  while  they  are  showing  how 
one  sin  of  one  man,  when  committed  under 
circumstances  favourable  to  the  development 
of  its  proper  effects,,  is  capable  of  resulting  in 
the  actual  guilt  and  temporal  suffering  of  all, 
and  in  the  final  condemnation  of  many. 

A.nd  when  this  demonstration  of  the  malig- 
nity of  sin  has  been  for  ages  exhibited  to  the 
examination  of  men  and  angels,  when  we  have 
seen  one  sin  spreading  its  contamination  over 
a  whole  world,  and  over  all  generations  of  men, 
and  showing  its  poison  in  the  production  of  a 
guilt  and  misery  that  baffles  all  -calculation  and 
all  conception,  is  this  demonstration,  over- 
whelming though  it  be,  the  most  painful  exhi- 
bition of  the  "  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin," 
which  God  hath  given  to  angels  and  to  men  ? 
No.  There  is  a  demonstration  more  striking 
still.  His  only-begotten  Son  is  sent  forth  to 
teach  us  this,  among  other  things,  that  the  holi- 
ness of  God  is  something  far  beyond  all  con- 
4* 


42  THE    INCARNATION. 

ception, — that  his  aversion  to  sin  is  wholly  un- 
alterable,— and  that,  in  short,  there  is  a  hate- 
fulness  in  sin,  which  we  can  no  more  compre- 
hend, than  we  can  comprehend  the  perfections 
of  God.  We  have  seen  the  effects  of  one  sin, 
and  these  are  disastrous  beyond  all  calculation. 
But  the  death  of  our  Divine  Prophet  must  be 
supposed  to  afford  a  demonstration  even  be- 
yond this,  else  it  would  not  have  been  given. 
When  angels  saw  him,  whom  they  were  ac- 
customed to  worship,  go  forth  into  the  world 
.in  the  "  likeness  of  sinful  flesh" — when  they 
saw  him  take  upon  him  the  penalty  due  to  the 
sins  of  a  lost  world, — when  they  saw  him  un- 
dertake to  pay  a  debt  of  such  incalculable  mag- 
nitude, they  would  be  ready  to  say,  surely  it 
is  sufficient  that  he  has  had  goodness  enough 
to  undertake  for  these  fallen  creatures  !  The 
debt  will  not  be,  in  reality  exacted  ;  the  penal- 
ty will  not  be  unsparingly  inflicted  upon  the 
only-begotten  and  well-beloved  Son.  A  little 
may  be  exacted  in  order  to  prove  the  reality  of 
his  suretyship, —  a  little  may  be  inflicted  to 
prove  the  reality  of  his  substitution  ;  but  surely 
the  whole  will  never  be  cither  required  or  in- 
flicted He  will  spare  the  Son.  But  no,  not 
one  pang  due  to  our  guilt  was  withheld,  not  one 
drop  of  gall  which  guilt  had  mingled  in  our 
eup,  was  abstracted  from.  his.  "  The  Lord 


THE    INCARNATION.  43 

hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquities  of  us  all ; "  and 
he  is  able  to  forgive  every  sin,  because  there  is 
no  sin,  the  bitterness  resulting  from  which  he 
did  not  feel  to  the  full.  And  this  is  what  consti- 
tutes his  death  so  awful,  and  solemn,  and  im- 
pressive a  demonstration,  beyond  all  other  de- 
monstrations, of  the  inconceivable  holiness  of 
God,  and  of  the  unspeakable .  hatefulness  of 
sin,  that  though  he  on  whom  our  iniquities 
were  laid  was  the  well-beloved  Son,  yet  not 
one  pang  due  to  guilt  was  spared  him. 

We  have  already  said  that  the  demonstra- 
tion of  the  unspeakable  grace  and  goodness  of 
God,  which  was  given  in  the  death  of  Christ, 
would  appear  still  more  conspicuously  when 
viewed  in  connection  with  the  demonstration 
of  the  exceeding  "  sinfulness  of  sin,"  derived 
from  the  same  event.  For  if  such  be  the  hate- 
fulness  of  sin,  that,  even  when  the  Son  took  our 
sins  upon  him,  not  one  pang  due  to  them  was 
spared  him,  then  how  great  is  the  goodness  of 
God  in  providing  a  ransom,  and  such  a  ransom, 
for  creatures  so  deeply  involved  in  all  its  pol- 
lution and  hatefulness  !  Well  might  the  apos- 
tle say,  "  For  scarcely  for  a  righteous  man  will 
one  die  ;  yet  perad venture  for  a  good  man 
some  would  even  dare  to  die.  But  God  com- 
mendeth  his  love  toward  us,  in  that,  while  we 


44  THE    INCARNATION. 

were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us."*  And 
well  might  he  also  say,  as  he  does  in  the  same 
chapter,  "  Where  sin  abounded,  grace  did 
much  more  abound."  For  if  such  be  the  ma- 
lignity of  sin,  that  one  sin  of  one  man  was  suf- 
ficient to  involve  the  whole  human  race  in 
guilt  and  condemnation,  how  great  is  that 
grace  of  God,  which  forgives  not  one  sin  of 
one  man,  but  innumerable  sins  of  innumerable 
men  ! 

As  the  death  of  a  fallen  and  sinful  creature 
could  be  no  demonstration  whatever  of  the 
grace  and  goodness  of  God,  so  neither  could 
it  be  any  greater  a  demonstration  of  the  malig- 
nity of  sin  than  our  own  death  If  then  Christ 
was  a  fallen  sinful  creature,  if  there  existed  in 
any  department  of  his  constitution  the  slightest 
portion  of  that  abominable  thing  which  God 
hates,  if  he  died  merely  by  the  "  common  pro- 
perty of  flesh  to  die,  because  it  was  accursed 
in  the  loins  of  our  first  parents,"  or  because  he 
had  taken  a  portion  of  the  "  perilous  stuff," 
then  his  death,  instead  of  being  the  most  awful 
and  solemn  exhibition  of  the  holiness  of  God, 
and  of  the  sinfulness  of  sin,"  which  men  or 
angels  ever  saw,  was  just  such  a  common  ex- 
hibition of  these,  as  we  have  the  advantage  of 

*  Rom.  v.  7. 


THE    INCARNATION.  45 

seeing  every  day,  in  the  death  of  other  fallen 
sinful  creatures. 

Hence  then  we  again  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion, that  the  death  of  Christ  was  necessary  to 
the  full  discharge  of  his  prophetic  office.  He 
died  that  he  might  teach  us  the  important  and 
necessary  lesson,  that  there  is  an  inconceivable, 
that  is,  to  us,  an  infinite  malignity  in  sin — that 
there  is  in  God  an  inconceivable  holiness  and 
hatred  of  sin, — and  that  sin  can  never  be  for- 
given without  being  first  atoned  for.  And  we 
come  also  to  the  conclusion  that  this  lesson 
could  not  be  taught  by  the  death  of  a  sinful 
creature,  in  any  higher  degree  than  it  is  taught 
by  the  death  of  those  who  are  daily  dying 
around  us,  and  consequently  that  our  prophet 
who  died  to  teach  us  this  was  not  a  sinful 
creature. 

We  might  make  similar  remarks  upon  the 
Truth  and  the  Justice  of  God,  from  the  illustra- 
tions of  which,  given  in  the  death  of  our 
prophet,  the  same  conclusion  that  he  was  not 
sinful  or  fallen,  might  be  drawn.  We  shall, 
however,  remark  upon  no  other  of  the  divine 
perfections,  save  his  Immutability,  as  the 
knowledge  of  this  is,  in  itself,  most  necessary, 
and  includes,  in  some  measure,  both  his  Jus- 
tice and  Truth.  Of  the  existence  of  this  per- 
fection the  history  of  the  world  affords  many 


46  THE    INCARNATION. 

striking  illustrations.  Many  things  occurred 
to  induce  God,  if  change  with  him  had  been 
possible,  to  change  his  purpose  of  grace  and 
mercy  to  a  fallen  world.  The  history  of  the 
antediluvian  ages  shows  us  men,  not,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  mourning  over  the  dis- 
mal consequences  of  the  fall,  and  walking  in 
all  the  humility  of  deep  penitence  before  the 
God  whom  they  had  offended,  and  cherishing 
with  feelings  of  heartfelt  gratitude  the  happy 
hopes  which  he  had  graciously  held  out  to 
them  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  devoted  to  every 
species  of  wickedness,  and  carrying  their  guilt 
to  such  an  extent  as  to  render  it  necessary  to 
sweep  away  the  whole  race.  Yet  even  in  the 
infliction  of  this  terrible  judgment,  he,  in  the 
midst  of  wrrath,  remembered  mercy,  and  pre- 
served one  family,  that  through  them  the  pro- 
mise that  the  woman's  seed  should  bruise  the 
serpent's  head  might  be  fulfilled,  and  the  im- 
mutability of  his  purpose  might  be  manifested. 
Again,  when  Israel  was  chosen,  that  to  that 
nation  might  be  committed  the  "  oracles  of 
God,"  and  that  they  might  be  placed  under  a 
dispensation  preparatory  to  the  coming  of  the 
promised  Messiah,  how  constantly  did  they 
prove  themselves  to  be  truly  a  stiff-necked  and 
rebellious  people  1  Not  all  the  wonders  which 
they  saw  in  Egypt,  at  the  Red  Sea,  and  in  the 


THE   INCARNATION.  47 

wilderness,  not  their  own  constant  experience 
of  the  happiness  of  obedience,  and  the  misera- 
ble consequences  of  rebellion,  in  short,  nothing 
could  turn  them  away  from  their  idolatries. 
How  often  had  God  to  give  them  into  the 
hands  of  their  enemies  !  But  nothing  could 
induce  him  to  cast  them  off.  Their  unbelief 
could  not  make  his  faithfulness  of  none  effect. 
"  I  am  Jehovah  !  I  change  not ;  therefore  ye 
sons  of  Jacob  are  not  consumed."  Notwith- 
standing all  their  provocations,  therefore,  they 
were  still  preserve.  I  till  the  promise  was  ful- 
filled, and  the  "  Consolation  of  Israel"  sent. 

And  even  now,  that  for  the  rejection  of  the 
Messiah,  they  have  been  for  many  ages  sifted 
like  wheat  among  all  nations,  still  the  same 
immutability  which  performed  former  pro- 
mises, will  fulfil  that  which  teacheth  us  to 
hope,  that  the  veil  shall  yet  be  taken  away 
from  the  hearts  of  that  people,  when  Israel 
shall  turn  unto  the  Lord  and  be  saved. 

That  God  persevered,  in  the  accomplish- 
ment of  a  purpose  which  every  thing  in  the 
history  of  the  world  in  general,  and  of  his  own 
chosen  people  in  particular,  strongly  provoked 
him  to  abandon,  is  a  great  and  impressive 
proof  of  his  immutability.  But  a  still  greater 
was  wanted,  and  the  greatest  that  can  possibly 
be  conceived  is  given  in  the  death  of  Christ. 


48  THE    INCARNATION. 

When  all  our  iniquities  were  laid  on  him,  and 
the  penalty  of  them  all  was  exacted  of  him, 
will  not  God  relax  a  little  of  the  firmness  of 
his  purpose  ?  When  he  beholds  the  agonies 
which  rend  his  spotless  soul  with  unutterable 
anguish,  when  he  hears  his  strong  cryings,  and 
sees  his  tears,  and  the  shrinking  and  shudder- 
ing of  nature,  not  at  the  thought  of  death,  but 
of  that  hour  and  power  of  darkness  by  which 
death  was  preceded,  when  the  malice  of  men, 
and  the  power  of  Satan,  and  the  curse  of  a 
broken  law,  were  all  let  loose  against  him,  will 
not  God,  under  such  circumstances  as  these, 
relent  in  favour  of  his  well-beloved  Son  .'  Will 
he  not  interfere  to  confound  the  malice  of  men, 
to  wither  up  the  power  of  Satan,  to  abate  the 
demands  of  the  law  ?  Will  he  not  now  change, 
or  at  least  somewhat  modify  the  purpose  which 
declared  that  thus  it  must  be  ?  No.  He  will 
not  change  now,  and  thus  gives  the  most  deci- 
sive proof  that  never  on  any  occasion  can  he 
change.  Even  when  the  pains  of  hell  got  hold 
of  his  well-beloved  Son,  and  the  sorrows  of 
death  encompassed  him  around,  and  he  found 
trouble  and  sorrow  such  as  mortal  man  may 
never  adequately  conceive,  yet  God  maniiested 
no  variableness  and  no  shadow  of  turning.  If 
he  had,  what  would  have  been  the  conse- 
quence ?  A  God  capable  of  change,  and  go- 


THE    INCARNATION.  49 

verning  by  a  law  which  had  been  violated,  with- 
out its  demands  being  fully  satisfied,  and  its 
penalty  fully  inflicted,  would  have  been  the 
object  presented  to  the  view  of  angels,  and  an 
object  which,  it  is  obvious,  they  could  never 
have  contemplated  without  terror  and  alarm. 
Never  was  immutability  put  to  such  an  awful 
test,  and  never  was  result  so  glorious,  and  never 
coul'd  conviction  be  deeper  than  that  which  was 
impressed  upon  the  hosts  of  heaven,  that  in 
God  they  could  never  henceforth  dread  any 
change.  And  the  powers  of  darkness  know 
that  God,  who  withdrew  not  his  well-beloved 
Son  from  one  pang  that  the  imputed  guilt  of  an 
apostate  world  entitled  them  to  inflict  upon  him, 
tmtil  he  was  enabled  to  say,  "  It  is  finished,"  is 
a  God  who  cannot  change.  And  the  believer  in 
Jesus  knows  that  the  God  who  gave  up  his 
Son  to  die  for  him,  is  a  God  who  cannot 
change,  and  rejoices  to  know  that  if  God  hath 
chosen  him  to  salvation:  through  sanctification 
of  the  Spirit  and  belief  of  the  truth,  there  is 
then  nothing  in  heaven  above,  or  in  hell  be- 
neath, that  can  separate  him  from  the  love  of 
God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus.  And  let  the 
thoughtless,  heedless,  careless  sinner  know, 
that  God  can  never  change  ;  that  his  threaten- 
ings  are  as  unalterable  as  his  promises.  He 
is  pleasing  himself,  it  may  be,  in  some  vague, 


50  THE    INCARNATION. 

undefined,  and  unfounded  reliance  in  the  un- 
covenanted  mercies  of  God  ;  and  is  soothing 
down  the  alarms  of  conscience  by  saying — 
God  is  merciful.  And  merciful  he  is,  beyond 
what  heart  can  conceive,  but  merciful  to  those 
only  who  seek  his  mercy  in  the  appointed  way. 
He  thinks  perhaps  that  a  few  prayers  and 
tears  wrung  from  him  at  the  last  trying  hour, 
may  prevail  on  a  being  so  merciful,  to  save 
him  from  the  fearful  and  irreversible  doom  de- 
nounced against  sinners.  But  look  to  the  cross- 
of  Christ.  He  spared  not  his  own  Son,  and 
will  he  spare  thee,  as  if  he  loved  thec  better 
than  him?  He  abated  not  one  iota  of  the  de- 
mands of  the  law  in  the  case  of  his  own  well- 
beloved  Son,  and  will  he  abate  its  demands  for 
thee  ?  With  unchanging  and  unaltering  pur-- 
pose he  said  of  him,  "  Awake,  Oh  sword, 
against  my  shepherd,  and  against  the  man  that 
is  my  fellow."  And  hopest  thou  that  the  sword 
that  was  made  so  sharp  to  him,  shall  be  sheath- 
ed for  thee  ?  Thou  hopest  for  impossibilities. 
Away  with  the  delusive,  the  destructive  hope, 
and  flee  to  him  in  whom  alone  safely  is  to  be 
found. 

Again,  then,  we  come  to  the  conclusion,  that 
Christ  died  as  our  Prophet,  that  lie  might  re- 
veal to  us,  among  other  things,  the  immutabi- 
lity of  God.  For  his  death  put  that  immuta- 


t*  THE  INCARNATION.  51 

bility  to  a  test  which  proves  this  characteristic 
to  be  truly  infinite,  and  which  can  leave  to 
neither  the  sinner  nor  the  saint,  the  fallen 
angels,  nor  those  that  surround  his  throne, 
either  the  hope,  or  the  fear  of  change.  And 
again  we  also  conclude,  that  to  him,  from 
whose  death  wTe  learn  the  immutability  of 
God,  the  terms  fallen,  and  sinful,  never  could, 
with  truth,  be  applied.  For  where  was  the 
mighty  test  of  immutability  in  giving  up  such 
a  being  to  death  1  Or  what  could  we  have 
learned  of  the  character  of  God  at  all  from  his 
death,  more  than  from  the  death  of  other  men? 
We  can  produce  the  most  irresistible  proof  of 
every  particular  in  this  proposition, — "  God  is 
a  Spirit,  infinite,  eternal  and  unchangeable,  in 
being,  wisdom,  power,  holiness,  justice,  good- 
ness, and  truth  ?  But  remove  the  cross  of 
Christ,  from  which  alone  the  proof  is  derived, 
or  make  it  the  cross  of  a  fallen,  sinful  man, 
and  we  are  again  plunged  into  all  the  uncer- 
tainty of  those  speculations  upon  the  being  and 
attributes  of  God,  the  only  effect  of  which  has 
been  to  show,  that  unaided  reason  could  never 
draw  any  satisfactory  conclusion  upon  the  sub- 
ject, from  the  kingdom  either  of  nature  or  of 
providence — that  as  the  sun  can  be  discovered 
only  by  his  own  light,  so  God  can  be  known 
only  by  his  own  revelation. 


52  THE   INCARNATION. 

I  have  dwelt  the  longer  on  the  prophetic 
office  of  Christ,  for  the  purpose  of  showing 
that  to  the  due  discharge  of  the  duties  peculiar 
to  that  office,  his  death,  and,  consequently,  his 
Incarnation,  was  not  less  necessary,  than  for 
the  purpose  of  making  atonement  for  sin,  or 
for  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  his  sacerdo- 
tal office.  To  the  latter  our  attention  is  com- 
monly more  particularly  directed,  when  speak- 
ing of  the  Incarnation  and  death  of  our 
Redeemer. 

I  have  dwelt  the  longer  on  his  prophetic 
character  too,  for  the  purpose  of  leading  us  to 
a  principle  which  it  is  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance to  keep  constantly  in  view,  in  all  discus- 
sions on  such  topics,  and  indeed  in  all  theolo- 
gical discussions,  namely,  that,  in  Christ,  the 
prophetic,  sacerdotal,  and  regal  offices  were 
never  divided.  His  every  act  must  be  viewed 
in  its  prophetic,  sacerdotal,  and  regal  aspects, 
before  its  full  importance  can  be  seen.  This 
principle  I  shall  take  some  pains  to  establish. 
But  it  will  be  more  easily  done  when  I  have 
made  such  remarks  as  the  subject  requires  on 
the  other  offices  of  Christ. 

Let  us  not,  in  passing,  neglect  the  more  strik- 
ing and  important  practical  bearings  of  this 
subject.  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  show, 
that  the  death  of  our  Prophet  very  distinctly 


THE  INCARNATION.  53 

teaches  us,  that  such  is  the  goodness  of  God, 
that  there  is  no  extent  of  guilt  which  he  is  not 
willing  to  pardon,  and,  therefore,  that  there  is 
no  sinner  who  may  not  venture  to  come  to  the 
throne  of  grace.  I  have  also  shown  how  the 
same  event  proves,  that  to  hope  for  salvation, 
excepting  through  an  union  with  Christ,  is  to 
hope  that  God  will  overturn  the  whole  princi- 
ples of  his  moral  government,  and  render  the 
whole  scheme  of  redemption,  and  all  that  it 
cost  the  Saviour  to  accomplish  it,  a  mere  nul- 
lity ;  and  that,  for  the  purpose  of  sparing  the 
sinner  the  trouble  of  denying  himself,  and 
abandoning  his  sins.  I  would  now  further  re- 
mark, that  the  death  of  our  Prophet  distinctly 
teaches  us  to  what  extent  our  obedience  to  God 
must  be  carried.  His  command  is,  that  we 
should  be  ready  to  lay  down  our  lives  for  the 
brethren,  and  should  l  resist  even  unto  blood, 
striving  against  sin.'  His  own  practice  goes 
to  the  full  extent  of  his  precept.  He  obeyed 
even  unto  death.  He  has  thus  cut  off  every 
excuse  that  can  possibly  be  made  for  a  limited 
obedience. 

Whether  then  we  look  to  the  communication 
of  theological  truth,  or  to  the  illustration  and 
enforcement  of  practical  principle,  it  is  plain 
that  our  instruction  would  have  been  altogether 
defective,  had  not  our  Prophet  died.  Had  his 
5* 


54  THE  INCARNATION. 

obedience  been  limited  to  something  short  of 
death,  then  we  would  have  felt  encourged  to 
s.et  a  limit,  and  that  a  much  narrower  limit,  to 
our  own  obedience.  But  if  even  death,  in  its 
most  fearful  form,  did  not  authorize  the  Son  to 
decline  from  the  path  of  obedience,  then  his 
every  pang  impresses  upon  our  hearts  the 
lesson,  that  when  God  commands,  there  is  no 
plea,  however  plausible,  that  can  possibly  be 
admitted  as  an  excuse  for  neglecting  to  obey  ; 
that  though  obedience  should  lead  us  through 
a  fiery  furnace,  or  a  lion's  den,  the  example  of 
him  who  obeyed  through  sufferings  more  fear- 
ful by  far  than  either,  infallibly  assures  us,  that 
no  argument  can  apologize  for  our  turning  back 
when  God  calls  us  to  go  forward.  When  a 
man  begins  to  inquire,  not  how  he  may  most 
effectually  obey  God,  but  within  how  narrow 
limits  he  may  venture  to  contract  his  obedi- 
ence ;  when  he  begins  to  ask,  not  what  is  right, 
but  what  is  expedient,  let  him  look  to  the  cross 
of  Christ,  and  either  renounce  such  principles, 
or  renounce  the  name  of  Christian. 

CHRIST  OUR  PRIEST. 

Let  us  now  direct  our  attention  to  the  Sa- 
cerdotal office.  The  great  duties  of  a  priest 
are  to  make  atonement  for  the  sins  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  to  offer  up  intercessions  for  them.  It 


THE  INCARNATION.  55 

is  clearly  necessary  that  he  who  thus  appears 
before  God,  in  behalf  of  the  people,  must  him- 
self be  perfectly  holy.  Under  the  law  no  per- 
son could  be  found  possessed  of  this  perfect 
holiness,  but  the  utmost  care  was  taken  to 
render  the  Levitical  High  Priest,  as  far  as 
possible,  a  striking  type  of  Christ  in  this  re- 
spect. He  was  required  to  be  perfectly  free 
from  all  bodily  defect  and  deformity.  He  was 
to  be  born  of  a  mother  who  had  been,  not  a 
widow,  but  a  virgin,  when  married  to  his  fa- 
ther. He  was  consecrated  to  his  office  by 
ceremonies  of  the  most  solemn  kind.  He 
wore  upon  his  forehead  a  golden  plate,  on 
which  was  graven,  "  like  the  engravings  of  a 
signet,  HOLINESS  TO  THE  LORD."  He  was  not 
permitted  to  mourn,  as  other  men,  for  those 
that  died,  nor  to  contract  any  ceremonial  un- 
cleanness  even  for  his  father  or  his  mother. 
And  on  the  great  day  of  atonement,  when  he 
entered  into  the  sanctuary,  he  prepared  him- 
self for  the  solemnity,  by  offering  first  an  atone- 
ment for  himself.  Thus  the  utmost  degree  of 
ceremonial  holiness  was  conferred  upon  him, 
that  he  might  be  a  type  of  the  immaculate 
holiness  of  our  great  High  Priest. 

That  Christ  made  atonement  for  his  people, 
and  intercedes  for  them,  we  need  not  stop  to 
prove.  But  there  are  two  points  upon  which 


56  THE  INCARNATION. 

a  few  remarks  are  necessary — the  one  is,  that 
wherever  atonement  is  made,  it  is  made  by 
sacrificial  blood-shedding  ;  and  the  other  is, 
that  to  offer  this  sacrifice  was  the  peculiar 
province  of  the  priest.  In  proof  of  the  first  of 
these  positions,  we  might  refer  to  the  whole 
Levitical  ceremony.  We  might  go  still  farther 
back,  and  refer  to  the  sacrifice  of  Abel,  as  a 
proof  that  expiatory  sacrifice  was  instituted  by 
God,  from  the  beginning.  At  present,  how- 
ever, we  shall  produce  only  two  texts,  which 
seem  sufficiently  decisive  on  the  subject.  In 
Leviticus,  xvii.  2,  it  is  thus  written,  "  The  life 
of  the  flesh  is  in  the  blood;  and  I  have  given 
it  to  you  upon  the  altar  to  make  an  atonement 
for  your  souls  ;  for  it  is  the  blood  that  maketh 
atonement  for  the  soul"  And  in  Hebrews,  ix. 
22,  it  is  declared  that — "  without  shedding  of 
blood  is  no  remission."  Hence  the  blood  of 
the  covenant  has  flowed  through  every  age, 
and  has  been  the  hope  of  the  saints — the  sym- 
bol of  the  promised  seed,  through  all  gene- 
rations. 

Neither  will  it  be  necessary  to  dwell  on  our 
second  position,  that  none  save  the  priest  could 
present  this  atoning  sacrifice.  This  is  very 
plainly  declared  in  Hebrews,  v.  1.  "For  every 
high  priest  taken  from  among  men,  is  ordained 
for  men  in  things  pertaining  to  God,  that  he 


THE  INCARNATION.  57 

may  offer  both  gifts  and  sacrifices  for  sins."  It 
is  sufficiently  proved  too, by  the  ceremonies  on 
the  great  day  of  atonement.  On  that  day  the 
priest  appeared,  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  in 
the  sanctuary  before  the  Lord,  on  behalf  of  the 
people,  nor,  we  suppose,  will  any  one  doubt 
that,  had  any  other  person  offered  to  do  this, 
he  would  have  paid  for  his  temerity  with  his 
life.  No  man  might  take  "  this  honour  to  him- 
self, but  he  that  was  called  of  God,  as  was 
Aaron."  And  the  guilt  of  assuming  this  office, 
without  such  a  call,  was  fearfully  exemplified 
in  the  awful  fate  of  Korah  and  his  company, 
whose  censors,  after  they  had  gone  down  alive 
into  the  pit  were  beaten  into  plates  for  a  cov- 
ering to  the  altar,  "  to  be  a  memorial  to  the 
children  of  Israel  that  no  stranger,  who  is  not 
of  the  seed  of  Aaron,  come  near  to  offer  in- 
cense, and  by  parity  of  reasoning,  to  offer 
sacrifice — before  the  Lord  ;  that  he  be  not  as 
Korah,  and  as  his  company."  The  same  thing 
is  exemplified  in  the  case  of  Saul,  whoi  under 
trying  enough  circumstances,  said,  "  I  forced 
myself,  and  offered  a  burnt-offering,"  by  which 
Samuel  declared  that  he  had  completed  the 
guilt  which  lost  him  the  kingdom.  The  case 
of  Uzziah  affords  distinct  proof  of  the  same 
thing.  But  it  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  proofs 
on  a  subject  so  plain  ;  for  the  very  institution  of 


58  THE  INCARNATION. 

the  prie^thcod  is  a  sufficient  proof  of  our  posi- 
tion, since,  if  any  man  might  offer  expiatory 
sacrifices,  that  institution  was  useless. 

These  hints  may  serve  for  the  present  on  a 
point,  which,  we  trust,  few  of  our  readers  are 
disposed  to  call  in  question,  that  where  there 
is  atonement  there  is  sacrifice,  and  where  there 
is  sacrifice  there  is  a  priest  to  offer  it.  If,  then, 
Christ  made  atonement  for  sin,  he  made  that 
atonement  by  sacrifice  ;  and  if  he  offered  a 
sacrifice  then  was  he  a  priest,  not  a  priest  elect, 
to  be  anointed  to  his  office  at  some  future  pe- 
riod, but  a  priest  already  possessed  of  all  the 
dignity  and  of  all  the  prerogatives  of  the  priest- 
hood at  the  moment  when  the  sacrifice  was 
offered. 

We  have  already  stated,  that  the  Priest  who 
offered  an  atoning  sacrifice,  must  of  necessity, 
be  perfectly  holy,  ceremonially  so  under  the 
law,  since  really  so,  none  could  possibly  be.  It 
is  to  be  observed  also,  that  the  victim  offered 
was  likewise  required  to  be  perfect  in  its  kind, 
without  blemish  or  spot,  else  it  could  not  be 
accepted.  "  Cursed  be  the  deceiver,  that  hath 
in  his  flock  a  male,  and  voweth  and  sacrificeth 
to  the  Lord  a  corrupt  thing  ;  for  I  am  a  great 
King,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  and  my  name  is 
dreadful  among  the  heathen." 

Both  as  the  victim  offered,  then,  and  as  the 


THE     INCARNATION.  59 

Priest  who  offered  it,  it  was  necessary  that 
Christ  should  possess  all  the  perfection  of  holi- 
ness,— a  holiness  not  resulting  from  a  success- 
ful resistance  of  the  motions  of  sin  in  the  flesh  f 
but  a  holiness  resulting  from  the  total  absence 
of  any  such  motions.  For  an  inclination  to  sin, 
however  successfully  resisted,  and  however 
completely  repressed  from  going  forth  into  ac- 
tual transgression,  is  itself  criminal,  and  totally 
incompatible  with  the  holiness  of  the  "  Lamb  of 
God,  which  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world." 
If  such  inclination  was  in  Christ,  then  was  he 
•under  the  same  necessity  as  the  Levitical  high- 
priest,  to  prepare  himself  for  appearing  before 
the  Lord,  by  offering  first  a  sacrifice  for  his 
own  sins.  The  holiness  of  him,  therefore,  who, 
"through  the  eternal  Spirit,  offered  himself 
without  spot  to  God,"  was  not  a  holiness  that 
resulted  from  a  successful  repression  of  the 
sinful  inclinations  of  the  flesh,  or  from  a  suc- 
cessful overccm  ng  of  the  renitency  of  the  hu- 
man will  against  the  Divine  will ;  but  from  the 
total  absence  of  any  such  inclinations,  or  such 
renitency  in  the  MAN  anointed  in  the  moment 
of  conception,  with  all  the  plenitude  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  Had  he  been,  in  any  manner,  or  to  any 
degree,  involved  in  the  guilt  of  men,  he  could 
not  have  substituted  himself  in  the  room  of 
guilty  men,  but  must  have  died  for  his  own 
guilt. 


60  THE    INCARNATION. 

Christ  then  was  really  and  truly  a  Priest;— 
an  unfallen  and  sinless  Priest.  He  had  a  life 
which  was  strictly  his  own,  which  he  could,  by 
no  law,  be  required  either  to  assume,  or  to  lay 
down ;  a  life  which,  in  this  respect,  differed 
essentially  from  the  life  of  every  created  being; 
for  no  created  being  assumes  life,  but  receives 
it  at  the  will  of  God,  without  the  possibility  of 
giving  his  own  previous  consent  to  its  reception, 
and  without  the  possibility  of  having  or  of  acquir- 
ing any  right  to  dispose  of  that  life  as  he  pleas- 
es. Christ  thus  having  a  human  life  differing 
from  the  life  of  every  created  being',  had  power 
to  lay  it  down  at  his  own  pleasure,  and  in  any 
manner  that  he  might  think  proper.  He  did 
lay  it  down,  and  his  death  was  really  and  truly 
an  atonement.  It  was  the  payment  of  our  debt, 
the  ransom  of  our  redemption,  the  endurance 
of  our  penalty,  the  price  by  which  we  were 
purchased,  the  removal  of  the  wrath  of  God 
from  us,  by  its  transference  to  our  substitute. 
This  atonement  was  demanded  by  all  the  attri- 
butes of  the  Divine  character,  all  of  which  are 
gloriously  illustrated  by  it-  It  was  demanded 
by  the  interests  of  all  the  rational  family  of  God, 
which  would  have  been  involved  in  dismay  and 
ruin,  had  sin  been  pardoned  without  that  proof 
of  its  unalterable  hatefalness  in  the  sight  of 
God,  which  the  atonement  alone  could  furnish. 


THE    INCARiNATION.  61 

By  the  atonement,  Christ  has  laid  a  ground 
for  an  intercession  which  must  always  be  ef- 
fectual, so  that  the  prayer  of  faith  offered  unto 
God  through  him,  can  never  fail  to  be  heard. 
"  For  Christ  is  not  entered  into  the  holy  places 
made  with  hands,  which  are  the  figures  of  the 
true ;  but  into  heaven  itself,  now  to  appear  in 
the  presence  of  God  for  us." 

The  most  important  duty,  and  that  which  we 
most  clearly  and  obviously  owe  to  our  great 
High  Priest,  is  to  renounce  every  self-righteous 
thought,  and  every  self-dependent  feeling,  and 
account  the  pardon  of  our  sins,  and  eternal  life 
as  solely  the  free  gift  of  God  through  him. 
That  every  deed  of  righteousness  that  we  do, 
is  not  one  of  the  causes,  but  one  of  the  effects 
of  our  justification,  is  a  truth  of  the  very  utmost 
importance ;  and  a  truth  which  may  perhaps 
be  most  satisfactorily  proved  by  considering 
some  of  the  most  common  objections  that  are 
opposed  to  it- 

It  is  objected  to  the  doctrine  that  we  are  jus- 
tified solely  by  the  atonement  made  by  Christ, 
that  no  necessary  connection  can  be  discovered 
between  the  pardon  of  a  guilty  person,  and  the 
death  of  an  innocent  one ;  nor  can  any  one  ex- 
plain how  the  latter  can  be  the  cause  of  the  for- 
mer. To  this  it  may  be  answered — and  the 
answer  is  a  complete  counterpoise  to  the  ob- 
6 


62  THE    INCARNATION. 

jection, — that  there  is  just  as  little  connection, 
that  we  can  see,  between  pardon  and  repen- 
tance, or  between  pardon  and  any  thing  else 
that  may  be  considered  as  its  cause,  as  between 
pardon  and  atonement.  Both  the  objection  and 
the  answer  are  particular  instances  of  a  univer- 
sal truth,  which  is,  that  no'necessary  connection 
is  discoverable  by  us  between  any  two  events, 
which,  nevertheless,  we  are  accustomed  to  con- 
sider as  cause  and  effect.  God  has  established 
a  connection  between  the  atonement  of  Christ, 
and  the  pardon  of  the  believer ;  and  what,  be- 
sides the  fiat  of  the  Almighty,  is  requisite  to 
establish  a  connection  between  any  two  things '? 
or  what  else  has  made  any  one  thing  in  the 
universe  to  be  the  cause  of  any  other  thing  1 
If,  therefore,  we  could  see  no  reason  why  the 
pardon  of  sin  is  communicated  through  the  ex- 
piatory sacrifice  of  Jesus  Christ, — no  necessity 
whatever  for  atonement,  yet,  when  the  fact  is 
revealed  to  us  by  God,  that  we  can  be  pardoned 
only  through  a  crucified  Redeemer,  it  would 
become  us,  as  offending  creatures,  depending 
altogether  on  the  mercy  of  God,  to  receive  the 
annunciation  with  all  humility  and  gratitude. 
But  when  God  has  graciously  permitted  us  to 
see,  in  part  at  least,  the  absolute  necessity  of 
atonement,  and  some  of  the  important  moral 
purposes  answered  by  it,  it  is  worse  than  fool- 


THE    INCARNATION.  63 

ish  to  find  fault  with  this  method  of  communi- 
cating pardon. 

When  it  is  said  that  God  is  willing  to  par- 
don us  upon  our  repentance,  without  any  atone- 
ment, it  is  taken  for  granted  that  we  can  repent 
when  we  please.  For  if  repentance  be  some- 
thing entirely  out  of  our  power,  then  it  can 
afford  us  no  comfort  to  tell  us,  even  if  it  were 
true,  that  repentance  will  purchase  our  pardon. 
And  I  know  not  that  even  the  most  determined 
rationalism  has  ever  promulgated  a  tenet  more 
clearly  absurd,  or  more  decidedly  opposed  to 
all  experience,  than  the  tenet  that  a  man  can 
repent  of  himself,  without  being  led  and  enabled 
to  do  so  by  ihe  Holy  Spirit.  Many  a  sinner  is, 
no  doubt,  soothing  himself  to  peace  by  the  pro- 
mise of  a  future  repentance.  But  he  neither 
knows  as  yet  what  repentance  is,  nor  his  own 
need  of  it,  else  he  would  build  himself  up  in  no 
such  foolish  delusion.  For  what  does  the  sin- 
ner do,  when  he  promises  himself  a  future  re- 
pentance ?  He  just  says,  To-day,  nothing  shall 
induce  me  to  abstain  from  indulging  every 
appetite  and  every  desire  ;  nothing  shall  lead 
me  to  think  of  God  at  all,  or  to  think  of  him 
without  dread  and  aversion ;  nothing  can  make 
me  delight  to  contemplate  his  perfections,  or 
find  any  pleasure  in  drawing  near  to  him  ;  to- 
morrow, I  will  sit  down  and  mourn,  in  the  ut° 


64  THE    INCARNATION. 

most  anguish  of  spirit,  those  indulgences  from 
which  nothing  shall  induce  me  to-day  to  abstain, 
and  wish  a  thousand  times  that  I  had  never 
yielded  to  them ;  nothing  shall  give  me  such 
delight  as  the  contemplation  of  those  glorious 
perfections  which,  to-day,  I  hate  to  think  of ; 
and  I  shall  account  nothing  such  a  privilege 
as  to  draw  near  to  that  throne  of  grace,  before 
which  nothing  shall  induce  me,  to-day,  to  bend 
the  knee.  This  is  exactly  what  the  sinner 
says,  when  he  promises  himself  a  future  re- 
pentance. He  promises  that  to-morrow  he 
will  hate  with  the  most  cordial  detestation,  that 
to  which,  to-day,  he  clings  with  the  most  ardent 
affection.  He  who  says,  To-day  I  am  bowed 
down  with  all  the  weight  of  three  score  years 
and  ten,  but  to-morrow  I  am  resolved  that  I 
shall  flourish  in  all  the  vigour  of  unbroken 
youth,  forms  a  resolution  quite  as  rational,  and 
quite  as  much  within  his  power  to  accomplish, 
as  he  who  says,  to-morrow  I  will  repent.  Re- 
pentance and  renovation  are  not  sacrifices 
which  we  give  to  God,  as  the  price  of  our 
justification ;  but  gifts  which  God  bestows  upon 
us,  and  which  God  only  can  bestow,  in  conse- 
quence of  our  having  been  freely  justified, 
through  the  atonement  of  our  Priest. 

But  the  grand  objection  to  the  doctrine  of 
atonement  is,  that  it  is  hostile  to  the  interests 


THE    INCARNATION.  65 

of  morality.  It  is  said,  that  to  tell  a  man  that 
he  is  justified,  not  by  his  obedience  to  the  law 
of  God,  but  solely  by  the  merits  of  our  great 
High  Priest,  is  to  cut  the  very  sinews  of  ex- 
ertion ;  to  place  a  pillow  beneath  the  head  of 
the  sluggard  ;  to  spread  a  couch  for  the  re- 
pose of  indolence  ;  to  take  away  the  most  pow- 
erful motives  to  diligence  in  doing  good,  and 
to  steadfastness  in  resisting  temptation.  It  is 
very  natural,  say  such  objectors,  for  a  man  to 
reason  thus.  As  my  justification  depends  not 
at  all  on  my  own  holiness,  therefore  it  is  un- 
necessary for  me  to  put  myself  to  the  pain  and 
trouble  of  cultivating  holiness.  I  need  take  no 
care,  since  I  have  a  sufficient  surety  to  answer 
for  all  my  failures.  That  some  men  should 
be  found  who  turn  the  grace  of  God  into  las- 
civiousness,  is  what  any  one  acquainted  with 
human  nature  would  be  prepared  to  expect. 
But  the  Gospel  is  not  responsible  for  the  er- 
rors of  those  who  pervert  it  to  their  own  de- 
struction. No  truth  is  more  certain,  than  that 
the  promotion  of  holiness  is  the  great  end  of 
all  that  Christ  has  done  and  suffered  for  us, — 
that  to  raise  man  from  his  state  of  moral  weak- 
ness and  degradation,  and  to  lead  him  to  the 
perfection  of  his  moral  nature,  is  the  grand 
purpose,  as  far  as  we  are  concerned,  for  which 
the  great  plan  of  our  redemption  was  devised, 
6* 


66  THE    INCARNATION. 

and  carried  into  execution.  But  the  atonement 
is  not  only  not  hostile  to  this  purpose,  but  fur- 
nishes the  only  means  by  which  it  can  be  ac- 
complished. It  will  be  granted,  that  religion 
consists  in  regarding  our  Maker  with  all  those 
feelings  which  his  perfections  are  calculated  to 
inspire  ;  or,  as  the  sacred  writers  emphatically 
call  it,  having  the  "  heart  right  with  God."  To 
believe  in  the  being  of  God  is  the  first  article 
in  religion  ;  and  to  know  his  nature  is  the  first 
step  toward  religious  perfection.  Consequent- 
ly, whatever  tends  most  effectually  to  instruct 
us  as  to  the  character  of  God,  and  most  deeply 
to  impress  upon  our  hearts  a  sense  of  his  glo- 
rious perfections,  must  also  most  effectually 
tend  to  produce  holiness.  Now,  which  of  the 
two  has  the  clearer  and  more  impressive  view 
of  the  divine  character — he  who  believes  in 
the  atonement,  or  he  who  considers  it  unneces- 
sary? In  the  death  of  Christ,  viewed  as  a 
sacrifice  for  sin,  the  one  sees  the  holiness  of 
God,  and  the  "  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin"  so 
awfully  displayed,  that  he  can  conceive  of  no- 
thing else  which  could  display  them  so  strongly 
or  convince  him  of  them  so  deeply — that,  in 
his  view,  not  even  the  destruction  of  the  whole 
human  race  could,  in  so  awful  and  impressive 
a  manner,  manifest  the  holiness  of  God,  and 
the  utter  and  inconceivable  hatefulness  of  sin, 


THE    INCARNATION.  67 

as  the  humiliation  and  death  of  the  Son  of  God. 
In  the  death  of  Christ,  the  other  sees  no  such 
sacrifice,  nor  any  manifestation  whatever  of  the 
holiness  of  God,  or  of  the  evil  of  sin;  and  he 
would  tell  us  that  the  deluge,  the  destruction 
of  Sodom,  or  the  final  perdition  of  any  one 
human  being,  is,  beyond  all  comparison,  a  more 
awful  proof  of  the  hatefulness  of  sin,  than  the 
death  of  Christ.  Is  it  possible,  then,  that  the 
latter  can  have  as  deep  and  impressive  a  view 
of  the  holiness  of  God,  as  the  former  ;  or  have 
his  heart  so  effectually  aroused  to  a  dread  of 
sin,  and  a  sense  of  its  malignity  ? 

Again :  with  regard  to  love  to  God,  that  im- 
portant principle  of  morality,  what  can  be  so 
well  calculated  to  awaken  it,  as  a  belief  in  the 
doctrine  of  atonement  1  "  We  love  him,  be- 
cause he  first  loved  us  ;"  and  it  is  in  the  atone- 
ment that  we  witness  the  exhibition  of  a  love 
ineffable  and  inconceivable.  He  who,  awaken- 
ed to  a  sense  of  his  guilt,  has  felt  himself  ready 
to  sink  under  its  insupportable  weight,  and  has 
found  safety  and  peace  in  the  blood  of  the 
"  Lamb  that  was  slain,"  finds  himself  totally 
unable  to  express  his  sense  of  the  mercy  of 
God,  in  providing  such  a  ransom  for  his  of- 
fending creatures.  It  is  in  the  very  God 
against  whom  he  has  rebelled,  that  he  finds 
his  help ;  and  a  life  devoted  to  his  service  is 


68  THE    INCARNATION. 

the  necessary  consequence  of  that  supreme 
gratitude  and  affection  which  have  been  im- 
planted in  his  heart.  Who  will  love  God  most? 
He  who  sees  him  providing  a  way  by  which 
pardon  may  be  granted,  while  we  are  placed 
in  a  situation  in  which  pardon  was  so  difficult, 
that  without  the  shedding  of  blood  there  could 
be  no  remission?  —  or  he  who  only  considers 
him  as  pardoning  while  there  was  no  obstacle 
whatever  to  the  granting  of  that  pardon  1 

And  who  will  regard  the  law  of  God  with 
the  greatest  respect, — he  who  considers  its 
claims  as  so  limited,  that  he  is  fully  able  to 
satisfy  them,  or  he  who  considers  it  as  so  pure 
and  so  extensive,  that  he  only  looks  forward  to 
conformity  to  it,  as  the  completion  of  his  sal- 
vation and  the  perfection  of  his  nature?  He 
who  considers  every  deed  of  righteousness 
which  he  performs,  as  so  much  of  the  labour 
accomplished  which  is  to  purchase  heaven  for 
him,  and  for  which  he  looks  on  God  as  his 
debtor  ;  or  he  who  considers  it  as  a  new  step 
gained  in  his  progress  to  perfection,  and  a  new 
ground  of  gratitude  to  God  ?  In  every  view 
which  can  be  taken  of  the  subject,  the  law 
appears  to  be  "  made  void,"  not  by  the  man 
who  sets  it  aside  as  the  ground  of  justification, 
because  he  has  so  high  an  idea  of  its  sanctity, 
that  he  considers  justification,  and  all  the  bless- 


THE    INCARNATION.  69 

ings  connected  with  it,  as  so  many  means 
adopted  to  produce  conformity  to  the  law  ;  but 
by  him  who  considers  it  only  as  a  means  for 
attaining  a  further  end  ;  and  a  means,  too, 
which  we  are  perfectly  capable  of  employing. 
The  end  of  the  one  is  to  be  justified,  and  con- 
formity to  the  law  the  means  by  which  it  is  to 
be  accomplished.  The  end  of  the  other  is  to 
be  renewed  after  the  image  of  his  Maker,  in 
righteousness  and  true  holiness  ;  and  justifica- 
tion is  only  one  of  the  means  by  which  that  end 
is  to  be  attained.  The  one  obeys  that  he  may 
be  justified  ;  the  other  obeys  because  he  has 
been  justified.  Much  has  been  forgiven  him  ; 
therefore  he  loveth  much.  Upon  what  possi- 
ble ground,  then,  can  he  who  denies  the  atone- 
ment, triumph  over  him  who  adopts  it  1  or  talk 
of  his  regard  for  the  interests  of  morality,  after 
he  has  degraded  holiness  from  its  lofty  situa- 
tion as  the  very  end  of  our  being,  the  end  for 
which  we  were  created  and  redeemed,  into  the 
rank  of  a  means  for  the  attainment  of  some 
further  and  more  important  object?  Or  how 
can  he  pretend  that  he  is  exalting  the  dignity 
of  human  nature,  who  contends  for  the  debas- 
ing doctrine,  that  if  the  dread  of  punishment  be 
removed,  there  is  no  longer  any  sufficient  mo- 
tive to  the  cultivation  of  holiness  ? 

The  first  and  most  sacred  duty  which  we 


70  THE    INCARNATION. 

owe  to  Christ  as  our  Priest,  is,  to  consider  the 
pardon  of  our  sins  as  resulting  solely  from  his 
work  as  our  Priest, — as  freely  granted  ante- 
cedently to  any  holiness  that  we  do  or  can 
possess,  and  consequently  as  being  in  no  sense, 
and  to  no  degree,  the  effect  of  that  holiness. 
And  this  belief,  so  far  from  being  hostile  to  the 
interests  of  morality,  affords  the  only  ground 
upon  which  the  principles  of  morality  can  be 
securely  built ;  as  it  makes  holiness  not  the 
means  to  some  further  attainment,  but  the  ulti- 
mate attainment,  the  final  perfection  of  man  ; 
and  as  it  not  only  furnishes  the  only  effectual 
means  for  the  successful  cultivation  of  holiness, 
but  sets  before  us  motives  for  its  cultivation  of 
a  more  impressive  urgency,  than  any  thing 
else  that  we  can  conceive  possibly  could  do. 

Another  duty  which  we  owe  to  our  Priest 
is  to  consider  him  as  the  ONLY  Priest,  through 
whom  we  can  have  access  to  God,  or  receive 
any  blessing  from  him.  Christ  hath,  "  by  one 
offering,  perfected  for  ever  them  that  are  sanc- 
tified," and  if  there  can  be  no  more  offering  for 
sin,  then  there  can  be  no  other  priest :  and  if 
the  death  of  Christ  was  perfectly  sufficient  for 
our  justification,  then  nothing  needs  to  be  add- 
ed to  it.  In  this  respect  the  Church  of  Rome 
is  grievously  guilty.  But  upon  this  subject, 
where  it  would  be  easier  to  write  a  volume 


THE    INCARNATION.  71 

than  a  page,  I  am  not  called  to  enter.  With- 
out looking  to  the  errors  of  others,  I  would  urge 
upon  my  reader  seriously  to  consider,  whether 
an  error  of  the  same  kind  do  not  exist  in  his 
own  heart.  Self-righteousness  is  not  so  much 
a  speculative  error  embraced  by  a  particular 
church,  as  a  practical  error  derived  from  the 
depravity  of  the  heart,  whatever  may  be  the 
creed  believed.  There  is  always  a  tendency 
to  substitute  something  in  ourselves,  in  part  at 
least,  as  the  ground  of  that  grace  which  can  be 
derived  from  our  great  High  Priest  alone,  a 
tendency  which  manifests  itself  in  a  great  va- 
riety of  ways,  and  which  must  b3  sedulously 
guarded  against  as  dishonouring  to  Christ. 

Another  duty  which  we  owe  to  our  great 
High  Priest,  is  to  live  up  to  our  privileges ;  and 
that  both  as  it  regards  our  advancement  in  the 
spiritual  life,  and  our  enjoyment  of  spiritual  plea- 
sure. The  Christian  life  is  essentially  a  progres- 
sive thing.  Nothing  can  be  a  greater  mistake 
than  the  opinion  which  seems  to  be  entertained 
by  many,  that  when  a  man  has  once  reason  to 
think  himself  a  Christian,  no  farther  improve- 
ment in  his  character  can  be  expected,  or  needs 
to  be  sought  after  ;  that  there  can  be  no  rea- 
son why  he  should  possess  a  stronger  faith,  or 
more  lively  hope,  or  a  larger  measure,  or  a 
more  active  exercise,  of  all  Christian  graces, 


72  THE   INCARNATION. 

when  he  is  forty  years  of  age,  than  when  h^ 
was  thirty.  He  who  entertains  such  a  notion 
has  abundant  reason  to  doubt  whether  he  knows 
any  thing  about  the  Christian  life.  Christ 
"  died  that  he  might  redeem  us  from  all  our 
iniquities,"  and  he  entered  into  heaven,  there 
to  appear  before  God  in  order  to  procure  for 
us,  and  bestow  upon  us,  all  the  grace  and  all 
the  power  necessary  to  enable  us  to  make  our 
path  "  as  the  shining  light,  which  shineth  more 
and  more  unto  the  perfect  day."  And  how  can 
we  pretend  to  be  his  disciples  at  all.  or  with 
what  feelings  can  we  hope  to  meet  himr  if  we 
can  permit  days,  and  months,  and  years,  to 
pass  away,  without  even  calling  upon  him  at 
all,  or  calling  upon  him  only  in  a  formal  and 
feeble  manner,  for  the  exercise  of  his  sacerdo- 
tal office  on  our  behalf;  and  are  living  as  if, 
so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  it  were  a  matter 
of  no  consequence  whether  Christ  be  or  be 
not  a  Priest, — whether  he  do,  or  do  not  pos- 
sess the  power  of  procuring  for  us  every  thing 
necessary  to  enable  us  to  go  on  from  grace  to 
grace,  and  from  strength  to  strength,  till  we 
appear  perfect  before  God  in  Zion.  Salvation 
is  looked  upon  as  something  to  be  obtained  and 
enjoyed  in  a  future  state,  and  to  be  seriously 
sought  for,  only  when  we  can  engage  in  world- 
ly concerns  no  longer ;  not  as  something  which 


THE    INCARNATION.  73 

it  is  the  first  concern  of  man  to  obtain,  and  the 
possession  of  which  alone  is  able  to  carry  us 
comfortably  through  all  the  duties  and  trials  of 
life.  This  is  exactly  as  if  the  rebel  should  say, 
that  when  actually  brought  to  the  scaffold,  it 
would  then  be  time  enough  to  think  of  the 
effectual  mediator  offered  to  him  ;  or  as  if  the 
sick  man  should  say  that  he  would  enjoy  his 
disease  as  long  as  possible,  and  then  when 
death  seemed  inevitable,  would  apply  to  the 
physician  who  could,  and  who  alone  could 
certainly  heal  him. 

.  The  Christian  life  ought  to  be,  because 
Christ  has  amply  provided  the  means  by  which 
it  may  be  made,  a  life  of  alacrity  and  joy.  It 
is  not  more  the  privilege  than  the  duty  of  the 
Christian,  to  "rejoice  always."  He  can  look 
upon  that  rich  field  of  privilege  and  of  promise 
placed  before  him  in  the  Bible,  and  can  say 
that  it  is  all  his  own.  And  where  is  the  want 
that  the  blessed  fruits  of  that,  field  cannot  sup- 
ply, the  distress  which  they  cannot  relieve,  the 
wound  that  they  cannot  heal,  the  fear  that  they 
cannot  quell,  or  the  sorrow  for  which  they  do 
not  furnish  abundant  consolation.  Friend  of 
Jesus,  why  weepest  thou  ?  If  you  have  "  an 
Advocate  with  the  Father,"  through  whom  your 
sins  are  all  forgiven,  and  you  are  made  a  child 
of  God ;  and  the  Holy  Ghost  is  given  you  as 
7 


74  THE    INCARNATION". 

your  sanctifier  and  comforter ;  and  you  are  as~ 
sured  of  having  Almighty  power  for  your  sup- 
port, and  unerring  wisdom  for  your  guide,  and 
heaven  for  your  eternal'  home,  what  can  over- 
balance or  suppress  the  joy  which  naturally 
results  from  such  privileges  as  these  ?  Trials 
we  may,  we  must  meet  with  ;  but  can  these 
depress  us,  when  we  know  that  "  our  light 
affliction  which  is  but  for  a  moment,  worketh 
for  us  a  far  more  exceeding  and  eternal  weight 
of  glory  ?"  If  tried  by  bodily  pain,  we  should 
just  feel  more  keenly  the  happiness  of  the  hope 
which  anticipates  the  time  when  we  shall  have 
"  a  building  of  God,  a  house  not  made  with 
hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens."  Worldly  loss- 
es will  not  overwhelm  us,  if  we  know  that  we 
are  undoubted  heirs  of  an  "  inheritance  that  is 
incorruptible,  undefiled,  and  that  fadeth  not 
away."  Friends  may  change  ;  but  we  will  be 
comforted  by  the  assurance  that  in  Christ  we 
have  a  "  brother  born  for  adversity,"  nay,  "  a 
friend  that  sticketh  closer  than  a  brother." 
There  rolls  between  us  and  our  Father's  house, 
the  deep  and  restless  tide  of  this  world's  cor- 
ruption, through  which  we  must  of  necessity 
pass,  and  the  deeper  and  more  dangerous  tide 
of  the  corruptions  of  our  hearts,  and  we  are 
surrounded  by  enemies  on  every  side ;  and 
when  we  feel  our  own  weakness,  wre  may  be 


THE    INCARNATION.  75 

ready  to  fear  lest  we  should  one  day  fall  by 
the  hand  of  some  of  them.  But  every  distress- 
ing fear  is  removed  when  we  recollect  that  we 
"  shall  not  be  tempted  beyond  what  we  are  able 
to  bear,"  and  that,  in  point  of  fact,  there  is  no 
limit  to  our  power,  for  we  "  can  do  all  things 
through  Christ  strengthening  us,"  and  that  the 
life  that  is  in  us  is  the  life  of  Christ,  a  life 
which  no  power  can  extinguish  in  any  one  of 
Christ's  members,  any  more  than  it  can  extin- 
guish it  in  our  glorious  Head. 

In  every  thing,  therefore,  does  it  become  the 
Christian  to  give  thanks, — even  for  those  tri- 
als which  call  into  exercise,  and  thus  strengthen 
his  graces  ;  for  though  "  no  chastening  for  the 
present  seemeth  joyous,  but  grievous  ;  never- 
theless afterward  it  yieldeth  the  peaceable  fruit 
of  righteousness  to  them  that  are  exercised 
thereby."  The  Christian  can  therefore  "glory 
in  tribulation,"  well  knowing  .that  when  he 
comes  to  the  end  of  his  course,  and  looks  back, 
on  all  his  blessings,  and  on  all  his  trials,  when 
he  sings  of  mercy,  he  will  see  reason  to  sing 
of  judgment  too.  But  when  we  drag  on  hea- 
vily, as  if  there  were  disheartening  difficulties 
to  be  met,  arid  heavy  penalties  to  be  endured, 
at  every  step,  we  bring  up  an  evil  report  upon 
the  good  land  ;  and  make  the  world  believe 
thai  we  serve  a  harsh  master,  who  demands 


76  THE  INCARNATION. 

much  while  he  gives  little ;  and  confirm  the 
too  readily  adopted  notion,  that  religion  is  a 
dull  and  gloomy  thing,  the  <  eath  of  all  plea- 
sure, and  the  grave  of  all  enjoyment.  And  if 
we  go  to  the  discharge  of  every  duty,  as  if 
there  were  a  "  lion  in  the  way,"  and  go  to 
meet  trial  and  temptation  with  feelings  like 
those  with  which  Saul  went  from  Endor  to 
Gilboa,  what  but  discomfiture  can  we  expect, 
when  we  engage  under  the  depressing  influ- 
ence of  anticipated  defeat  ?  We  are  invited 
to  come,  and  that  even  "  with  boldness,  to  the 
throne  of  grace."  If  indeed,  we  depended  for 
obtaining  the  petitions  that  we  make,  upon  our 
own  merits,  and  might  ask  nothing  but  what  we 
deserve,  then  it  would  be  useless  to  go  to  a 
throne  of  grace,  or  to  take  the  name  of  God 
into  our  lips  at  all ;  since  we  have  deserved 
only  wrath.  But  if  our  petitions  be  founded 
on  the  merits  of  Christ,  then  we  can  ask  no- 
thing [that  he  has  not  deserved,  and  nothing 
that,  if  it  be  really  good  for  us,  he  is  not  will- 
ing to  bestow.  In  this  case,  to  come  to  God 
with  fear  and  hesitation,  to  limit  our  petitions 
to  small  matters,  because  we  feel  that  we  have 
no  claim  to  ask  larger,  or  to  make  our  own 
merits  in  any  degree,  the  measure  of  our  accept- 
ance, or  to  ask  as  if  God  would  grudge  what 
he  bestows — in  all  this  we  are  just  dishonour' 


THE  INCARNATION.  77 

ing  our  great  High  Priest,  and  living  far  be- 
neath the  privileges  which  he  bestows  upon 
us.  To  consider  religion  as  being  our  busi- 
ness, but  the  world  as  the  source  from  which 
we  must  draw  our  pleasures — to  approach  God 
in  prayer  as  a  duty  which  it  is  right,  and  proper, 
and  profitable  to  perform,  but  without  any  feel- 
ing of  its  being  a  privilege  which  it  is  delight- 
ful to  enjoy, — to  come  to  him  as  a  Judge 
whose  good  will  it  is  our  interest  to  conciliate, 
without  being  able  to  look  upon  him  as  a  Father 
whose  powrer,  and  riches,  and  kindness,  it  gives 
us  pleasure  lo  contemplate  and  celebrate,  and 
whose  approving  smile,  the  light  of  whose 
countenance,  is  a  greater  treasure  than  corn 
and  wine,  and  oil, — is  to  take  a  view  of  that 
communion  to  which  God  calleth  us,  and  of  the 
privileges  which  he  has  conferred  upon  us,  that 
must  greatly  mar  both  our  peace,  and  our 
progress  in  the  Christian  life.  While  there- 
fore every  thing  approaching  to  presumption, 
or  to  that  affected  familiarity  with  God  which 
some  appear  .to  mistake  for  filial  confidence,  is 
to  be  guarded  against  with  the  most  sedulous 
care  ;  with  equal  care  ought  we  to  guard 
against  that  distrust  of  our  High  Priest  which 
makes  us  dread  to  exercise  and  to  enjoy,  with 
the  most  perfect  confidence  and  freedom,  the 
privileges  which  in  Christ  Jesus  we  possess. 
7* 


78  THE  INCARNATION. 

CHRIST  OUR  KING. 
I  proceed  now  to  the  consideration  of  our 
Lord's  regal  offices ;  and  here  it  will  be  seen 
that  his  death,  and  consequently  his  incarnation 
was  essentially  necessary  to  the  due  discharge 
of  his  functions  as  a  King.  From  eternity  he 
was  Lord  over  all.  He  possessed,  in  common 
with  the  other  persons  of  the  Godhead,  power 
to  sustain  and  bless  his  true  worshippers,  and 
to  involve  his  enemies  in  destruction.  But,  as 
Mediator,  he  was  the  Father's  servant,  and 
could  obtain  no  kingdom  which  he  did  not  first 
gain  by  victory, —  could  not  be  the  Saviour  of 
men  till  he  had  conquered  men's  foes,  and  could 
not  be  Lord  of  all  things  visible  and  invisible, 
for  the  purpose  of  effectually  securing  the  sal- 
vation of  his  people,  till  he  had  first  purchased 
this  dignity,  by  a  full  and  faithful  discharge  of 
the  duties  imposed  upon  him,  and  by  him  un- 
dertaken in  the  covenant  entered  into  between 
him  and  the  Father.  A  kingdom  was  given 
unto  the  Son  by  the  Father, — a  kingdom  which 
he  will  continue  to  hold  until  the  mystery  of 
redemption  be  finished,  when  he  shall  again 
give  up  the  kingdom,  that  God  may  be  "all 
in  all." 

From  the  beginning,  then,  was 'Christ  a  king, 
and  as  a  king  did  he  come  to  exhibit  himself  in 
the  world.  When  he  was  anointed  with  the 


THE    INCARNATION.  79 

fulness  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  he  was  anointed  as 
a  king,  not  less  than  as  a  prophet  and  priest. 
In  proof  of  this,  we  would  refer  to  the  forty- 
Jjfth  Psalm.  There  Christ's  prophetic  charac- 
ter is  first  referred  to  when  it  is  said,  "  Grace 
is  poured  into  thy  lips :  therefore  God  hath 
blessed  thee  for  ever,"  and  then  follows  a 
splendid  description  of  his  regal  power  and 
authority.  In  the  twenty-second  Psalm  also, 
his  prophetic  and  royal  characters  are  so  min- 
gled as  to  render  it  impossible  to  suppose  that 
the  one  of  these  could  commence  at,  one  period, 
and  the  other  at  another.  In  the  hundred  and 
tenth  Psalm,  his  regal  character  is,  in  the  same 
way,  combined  with  his  priesthood,  leading  ir- 
resistibly to  the  conclusion  that  all  these  char- 
acters he  adopted,  that  to  all  these  offices  was 
he  anointed,  at  one  and  the  same  time.  The 
prophet  Daniel  too  has  determined  an  appointed 
time  "  to  anoint  the  most  holy."  But  the  pro- 
phet has  taken  no  notice  whatever  of  a  variety 
of  anointings  at  different  times.  But  if  Christ 
was,  in  reality,  to  be  anointed  at  different  times, 
and  for  different  purposes,  then  the  statement 
of  the  prophet  is  not  only  defective,  but  tends 
to  mislead. 

That  Christ  was  a  king  at  his  coming  into 
the  world,  is  proved  by  the  fact,  that  the  first 
specific  character  under  which  he  is  presented 


60  THE    1NC1RNATION. 

to  us  in  the  New  Testament,  is  that  of  a  king. 

7  O 

"  Now,  when  Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem  of 
Judea,  in  the  days  of  Herod  the  king,  behold 
there  carne  wise  men  from  the  east  to  Jerusa- 
lem, Saying,  where  is  he  that  is  born  king  of  the 
Jews?"  Now,  when  these  men  were  led  by 
the  Holy  Spirit  from  a  far  country  to  proclaim 
the  birth  of  this  king,  and  when  they  must  have 
come  to  worship  him,  not  merely  as  king  of  the 
Jews,  a  person  in  whom  they  could  have  no 
concern,  but  as  that  generally  expected  king, 
who,  arising  in  Judea,  was  to  obtain  the  domin- 
ion of  the  world,  who  was  to  be  the  salvation 
of  God  to  all  the  ends  of  the  earth." — "  a  light 
to  lighten  the  Gentiles,  as  well  as  the  glory  of 
Israel," — a  king  the  expectation  of  whose  com- 
ing was  so  general,  that  the  flatterers  of  Ves- 
pasian professed  to  find  the  fulfilment  of  the 
prophecy  in  him,  upon  what  possible  ground 
can  it  be  rationally  maintained  that  the  person 
so  distinctly  announced  as  the  long-promised 
king,  was  in  reality  at  that  time  no  king  at  all, 
nor  to  be  made  a  king  till  after  his  death  ? 

Again,  when  our  Saviour  entered  into  the 
temple,  which  the  Jews  were  making  a  house 
of  merchandise,  and  when,  "  having  made  a 
scourge  of  small  cords,  he  drove  them  all  out  of 
the  temple,  and  the  sheep  and  the  oxen ;  and 
poured  out  the  changer's  money,  and  overthrew 


THE    INCARNATION.  81 

the  tables  ;  and  said  unto  them  that  sold  doves, 
take  these  things  hence  ;  make  not  my  Father's 
house  a  house  of  merchandise  ;"  he  was  surely, 
in  thus  purging  the  temple,  not  only  assuming  to 
himself  both  a  sacerdotal  and  royal  prerogative, 
but  was  giving  a  most  unequivocal  manifestation 
of  his  royal  authority.  For  who  is  this  who  not 
only  utters  so  unpleasant  a  command,  but  who 
so  imperiously  compels  an  instantaneous  obedi- 
ence to  it?  Is  this  the  carpenter's  son,  the  de- 
spised Nazarene,  the  obscure  peasant  of  the 
polluted  land  of  Gallilee  of  the  Gentiles  ?  A  s- 
suredly,  no.  Had  he  appeared  in  the  temple 
in  no  other  character  !,han  this,  and  attempted 
such  a  purgation  of  it,  he  would  at  once  have 
been  stoned  to  death,  or  torn  to  pieces.  It  is 
clear  that  they  who  submitted  thus  to  be  driven 
from  the  temple,  which  they  had  converted  into 
an  exchange,  who,  without  daring  to  resist,  saw 
even  their  money  poured  out,  beheld  in  him, 
who  thus  drove  them  away,  the  unequivocal 
manifestations  of  a  majesty  that  was  not  to  be 
opposed, — of  a  regal  authority  and  power,  that 
might  not  for  a  moment  brook  resistance.  He 
was  then  claiming  to  himself  the  honour  and 
the  submission  due  to  a  king,  and  as  assuredly 
and  as  fully  possessed  that  character  then,  as 
he  does  now. 

The  prophet  had  distinctly  declared  that  the 


82  THE    INCARNATION. 

Messiah  would  come  as  a  king,  saying, —  "Re- 
joice greatly,  O  daughter  of  Zion;  shout,  O 
daughter  of  Jerusalem  :  behold  thy  king  com- 
eth  unto  thee  ;  he  is  just,  and  having  salvation, 
lowly,  and  riding  upon  an  ass,  and  upon  a  colt, 
the  foal  of  an  ass."  And  this  prediction  was  ful- 
filled to  the  very  letter,  when  at  the  triumphant 
entrance  of  our  Lord  into  Jerusalem,  "the  whole 
multitude  of  the  disciples  began  to  rejoice,  and 
praise  God  with  a  loud  voice,  for  all  the  mighty 
works  that  they  had  seen,  saying,  Blessed  be 
the  king  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord ; 
peace  in  heaven,  and  glory  in  the  highest." — 
And  when  the  Pharisees  were  offended  at  this 
open  declaration  that  he  was  Messiah  the  king, 
and  desired  him  to  rebuke  his  disciples,  so  far 
was  he  from  complying  with  their  request,  and 
suppressing  the  voices  that  hailed  him  as  the 
long-promised  king,  that  "he  answered  and  said 
unto  them,  I  tell  you  that  if  these  should  hold 
their  peace  the  stones  would  immediately  cry 
out." 

And  was  he  who  was  thus  announcing  him- 
self to  Zion  as  her  king,  whom  her  eyes  were 
almost  failing  with  long  looking  for,  as  yet  a 
king  only  in  expectancy?  Was  he  not  acknow- 
ledged by  Nathaniel,  and  hailed  by  the  multi- 
tude, as  "King  of  Israel?"  And  are  we  to 
suppose  that  it  was  without  the  Providence  of 
God,  and  without  the  dictation  of  his  Holy  Spi- 


THE    INCARNATION.  83 

rit,  that  Pilate  wrote,  and,  though  entreated 
by  the  offended  Jews,  refused  to  alter  that  in- 
scription which  officially,  and  more  truly  than 
Pilate  knew,  declared  that  he,  who  was  sus- 
pended on  the  cross,  was  '*King  of  the  Jews  ?" 
Had  there  been  any  one  of  his  offices  in  which 
he  did  not  distinctly  announce  himself  to  the 
Jews,  then,  so  far,  had  they  been  guiltless,  as 
they  could  not  be  guilty  of  rejecting  that  which 
was  never  offered  to  them. 

He  came  not  only  as  King  of  the  Jews,  but 
he  came  that  in  man's  nature  he  might  over- 
throw man's  foes,  might  spoil  the  spoiler,  divest 
Satan  of  his  long  usurped  dominion,  enter  into 
the  strong  man's  house,  bind  him  and  take  from 
him  his  goods,  and  cast  out  the  prince  of  this 
world.  During  the  whole  course  of  his  life  he 
showed  his  superiority  to  the  powers  of  dark- 
ness. The  demons  knew  him  to  be  the  "  Holy 
one  of  God,"  and  shunned  his  presence,  and  fled 
his  approach,  and  offered  no  resistance  to  his 
commands.  The  hour  of  their  power  was  not 
yet  come,  and  they  could  afflict  him  only  through 
the  instrumerftality  of  wicked  men.  But  that 
hour  did  come, — the  hour  when  the  soul  of 
Jesus  began  to  be  "amazed  and  very  heavy," 
words  which  fall  far  short  indeed  of  expressing 
the  energy  of  the  original,  as  that  and  all  other 
language  must  fall  far  short  of  expressing  in  an 


84  THE  INCARNATION. 

adequate  manner,  all  the  Tearfulness  of  that 
amazement  and  horror  of  mind  which  then- 
seized  him.  The  hour  did  come  which  made 
him  cry  out,  "  Now  is  my  soul  troubled ;  and 
what  shall  I  say  1  Father  save  me  from  this 
hour  ;  but  for  this  came  I  unto  this  hour, — Fa- 
ther, glorify  thy  name."  Now,  what  was  it  that 
made  the  prospect  of  this  hour  so  terrible  to 
Jesus  ?  Was  it  the  mere  dread  of  death  ?  The 
supposition  is  totally  inconsistent  with  the 
whole  of  his  conduct  and  character.  Many  of 
his  disciples  have  endured  the  cross,  and  sub- 
mitted to  all  the  tortures  that  ingenuity  could 
devise ;  and  even  women  and  children  have  suf- 
fered all  these  tortures,  without  a  groan.  And 
did  Jesus  look  on  the  mere  pain  of  dying  with 
more  than  all  the  terror,  and  cling  to  a  troubled 
life  with  more  than  all  the  weakness  of  mortal 
man  ?  No.  It  was  not  dying  that  he  dreaded, 
but  the  fearful  conflict  by  which  his  death  was 
to  be  preceded.  The  powers  of  darkness  were 
all  let  loose  upon  him  to  assail  him  with  their 
utmost  force.  A  broken  law  came  to  demand 
of  him  the  restitution  of  all  its  violated  honour, 
and  to  inflict  upon  him  the  curse  due  to  its  vio- 
lation. And  was  it  only  a  part  of  its  demand 
that  it  then  insisted  upon  1  Only  a  part  of  its 
penalty,  that  it  then  inflicted?  We  cannot  think 
it.  We  cannot  see  how  the  law  was  honoured, 


THE    INCARNATION.  85 

if  only  a  part  of  the  violations  by  which  it  had 
been  insulted  and  trampled  upon,  were  visited 
upon  him,  and  only  a  part  of  its  penalty  en- 
dured. It  was  not  merely  a  few  of  the  iniquities 
of  his  people,  "  but  the  iniquities  of  us  all,"  that 
he  bore  on  the  cross.  And  how  did  he  bear 
them  ?  Was  it  in  mere  outward  show,  while 
in  reality  he  felt  not  their  penal  consequences  I 
How  he  could  be  said  to  bear  them  then,  and 
to  restore  that  which  he  took  not  away,  we  un- 
derstand not,  and  if  when  the  sinner  is  first  awa- 
kened to  a  sense  of  his  guilt,  or  when  the  back- 
slider begins  to  be  filled  with  the  fruit  of  his 
own  ways, — when  conscience  is  setting  his 
sins  in  array  before  him,  and  the  law  is  stamping 
all  the  bitterness  of  its  curse  upon  every  one  of 
them,  thus  filling  his  heart  with  terrors  that  can 
find  expression  only  in  groanings  unutterable, 
and  more  fearful  by  far  than  the  terrors  of 
death, — if  the  guilt  of  one  individual  can  thus 
fill  the  heart  of  that  individual  with  such  anguish 
and  such  agony,  who  may  venture  to  form  any 
estimate  of  the  agony  endured  by  Christ  when 
he  made  his  soul  an  offering  for  sin, — when  the 
deceit  of  Jacob,  the  adultery  and  murder  of 
David,  the  denial  of  Peter,  and  the  persecutions 
of  Paul,  when  the  sins  of  an  apostate  world  were 
collected  into  one  dark  mass,  and  its  whole  bur- 
den lajd  upon  him  ?  The  law,  inexorable  as  the 
8 


86  THE    INCARNATION. 

stony  tablets  upon  which  it  was  engraved,  was 
there,  setting  all  the  sins  by  which  his  guilty 
people  had  been  polluted,  in  array  before  him, 
filling  his  soul  with  all  their  terrors,  and  exact- 
ing from  him  the  penalty  due  to  them  all.  And 
death  was  there, — armed  with  a  power,  and 
clothed  with  terrors,  in  which  he  never  before 
or  since  assailed  living  being.  It  is  sin  that 
forms  the  sting  of  death,  and  invests  him  with 
all  his  powers.  And  if  his  assaults  be  terrible 
to  every  individual  of  us,  on  account  of  our  own 
individual  sins, — and  if  he  be  terrible  to  us  often, 
even  when  we  know  that  these  sins  are  all  for- 
given, who  may  estimate  the  power  and  the 
terror  with  which  he  assailed  our  Lord,  when 
armed  with  the  power  and  invested  with  the 
terrors,  not  of  the  sins  of  an  individual,  but  of 
those  of  a  lost  world  ?  And  he  who  had  the 
power  of  death,  even  Satan,  was  there,  with  all 
his  powers  unfettered  and  unrestrained,  to  try 
what  they  might  avail  against  the  "  second 
man,"  in  the  hour  of  sorest  travail.  And  the 
prince  of  the  powers  of  the  air  spread  darkness 
over  all  the  land,  and  made  the  earth  to  quake 
in  the  mightiness  of  his  efforts.  But  these  were 
only  faint  and  feeble  shadows  of  the  darkness 
and  commotion  which  were  raised  in  the  soul  of 
the  sufferer,  in  that  hour  of  Ins  dismal  conflict, 
when  his  power  to  accomplish  the  original 


THE    INCARNATION.  87 

promise  was  put  to  its  last  fearful  trial ;  when 
he  conquered  in  suffering,  and  bruised  the  ser- 
pent's head  while  his  own  heel  was  bruised. 

Now  had  there  been  in  any  department  of 
Christ's  person,  any  thing  to  which  the  terms 
sinful,  fallen,  rebellious,  could  with  the  most 
distant  approach  to  truth  or  justice  be  applied, 
we  would  ask  if  his  escape  from  this  hour  of 
the  power  of  darkness  was  a  thing  within  the 
bounds  of  possibility  ?  Had  the  law  found  in 
him  the  slightest  ground  to  which  it  might  at- 
tach the  curse  due  to  its  violation,  it  would  have 
held  him  fast  in  its  adamantine  chain,  as  a 
debtor  on  his  own  account,  and  never  would  he 
have  been  able  to  rescue  himself,  much  less  us, 
from  its  inexorable  grasp.  Had  death  and  he 
who  had  the  power  of  death,  found  the  slight- 
est ground  in  which  the  sting  of  death  might 
be  planted,  then  assuredly  had  death  had  for- 
cible dominion  over  him,  and  the  blackness  of 
that  darkness  which  was  around  him  and  within 
him,  in  the  garden  and  on  the  cross,  had  been 
his  portion  for  ever.  But  he  endured  their  ut- 
most rage,  deeply  tried,  tried  with  a  trial  be- 
yond aught  that  mortal  man  may  ever  compre- 
hend, but  unsubdued.  He  endured  till  the 
law  had  no  farther  claim,  till  the  powers  of 
darkness  fled,  their  utmost  power  defeated  and 
baffled,  and  with  them  passed  away  the  dark- 


68  THE    INCARNATION. 

ness  from  the  land,  and  from  the  soul  of  the 
victorious  and  triumphant  sufferer,  and  Satan 
saw  that  his  long  usurped  dominion  over  the 
world  was  now  utterly  and  hopelessly  broken. 
He  endured  till  he  could  say,  "  It  is  finished," 
till  "  having  spoiled  principalities  and  powers, 
he  made  a  show  of  them  openly,  triumphing 
over  them  in  it,"  namely  in  his  cross  He  en- 
dured till  all  his  confidence  and  trusl  in  his 
Father  had  returned,  to  restore  peace  and  holy 
joy  to  the  soul  from  which  they  had  for  a  time 
withdrawn,  and  then,  having  openly  shown  that 
the  princes  of  this  world  had  nothing  in  him, 
he  freely  and  voluntarily  gave  a  life  which  was 
still  his  own  for  the  life  of  a  lost  world.  Fear- 
ful was  the  conflict  that  he  sustained  during 
the  hour  of  the  "  power  of  darkness,"  but  happy 
and  glorious  was  the  result,  and  splendid  was 
the  victory  in  which  his  sufferings  terminated, 
and  most  royally  triumphant  was  his  death. 

From  these  remarks  the  reader  will  perceive 
that  I  maintain,  not  only  that  Christ's  death 
was  as  necessary  to  the  due  discharge  of  his 
royal  office,  as  it  was  to  the  due  discharge  of 
his  prophetic  and  sacerdotal  offices  ;  but  that 
I  further  maintain,  that  his  death,  at  the  very 
last  moment  of  his  mortal  existence,  was  per- 
fectly voluntary. — that  at  that  moment,  whether 
he  would  or  would  not  die,  was  a  thing  as  com- 


THE    INCARNATION.  89 

pletely  in  his  power  to  determine,  as,  previous 
to  his  Incarnation,  it  was  within  his  power  to 
determine  whether  he  would  or  would  not  be 
made  flesh.  The  simple  statement  which  we 
have  made  of  the  conflict  that  he  had  to  endure 
on  the  cross,  and  of  the  victorious  manner  in 
which  he  came  out  of  that  conflict;  might  per- 
haps be  considered  a  sufficient  proof  of  this. 
But  as  it  is  a  matter  of  the  highest  importance, 
I  shall  enter  a  little  further  into  it. 

In  support  of  the  position  that  Christ  was 
not  subject  to  death,  but  that  he  laid  down  his 
life  of  his  own  accord,  I  quote  his  own  ex- 
press declaration  to  that  purpose  :  "  Therefore 
doth  my  Father  love  me,  because  I  lay  down 
my  life,  that  I  might  take  it  again.  No  man 
taketh  it  from  me,  but  I  lay  it  down  of  myself ; 
I  have  power  to  lay  it  down,  and  I  have  power 
to  take  it  again.  This  commandment  have  I 
received  of  my  Father."  Nothing,  it  appears 
to  me,  can  be  simpler,  or  clearer,  or  more  un- 
ambiguous, than  this  declaration  of  our  Lord, 
that  his  life  was  at  his  own  disposal.  This  he 
spoke  of  his  human  life,  for  it  would  be  worse 
than  absurd  to  suppose  that,  before  he  had  a 
human  life,  he  could  have  used  any  such  lan- 
guage. It  is  very  clear  from  this,  that  the  life 
which  he  had  taken,  was  a  mortal  life,  else  he 
could  not  have  laid  it  down  at  all.  And  it  is 
8* 


90  THE    INCARNATION. 

equally  clear,  that  having  taken  a  mortal  life, 
he  could  not  say  that  he  had  power  to  lay  it 
down,  if,  in  point  of  fact,  he  had  no  power  to 
retain  it,  but  was  compelled  to  forego  it.  He 
could  not  say  that  lie  had  power  to  lay  it  down, 
and  to  lake  it  again,  in  order  to  show  that  he 
was  Lord  both  of  life  and  of  death,  if  he  died 
because  he  had  come  into  the  region  of  death, 
and  was  no  more  able  to  avoid  dying  than  any 
of  those  to  whom  he  spoke.  If  he  was  not 
God,  and  had  not  assumed  human  life  at  his  own 
pleasure,  then  he  could  have  used  no  such  lan- 
guage ;  for  no  created  being  can,  by  any  pos- 
sibility, possess  the  power  here  claimed  by 
Jesus.  But  if  he  was  God,  and  if  the  human 
life  which  he  had  assumed  was  as  truly  his 
own  life  as  his  Divinity  was  his  own,  then  he 
unquestionably  did  possess  a  sovereign  right  to 
dispose  of  that  life  as  he  pleased.  And  if  he 
had  not  that  power  over  his  own  life,  which  no 
created  being  can  have,  then  it  was  not  pos- 
sible to  present  that  life  a  voluntary  offering 
for  the  world.  It  was  not  his  to  give.  In  that 
case  he  did  no  more  than  Codrus,  Curtius,  and 
a  hundred  more  have  done.  Being  bound  to 
die  at  any  rale,  he  was  generous  enough  to  an- 
ticipate the  date  of  his  death,  in  order  to  ac- 
complish an  important  purpose,  and  acquire  a 
deathless  fame.  Though  what  important  pur- 


THE  INCARNATION.  91 

pose  could  be  accomplished  by  his  death,  if  he 
had  placed  himself  in  a  situation  where  death 
was  unavoidable,  it  is  not  easy  to  see. 

Should  the  possibility  of  a  doubt  yet  remain, 
whether  the  text  under  consideration  just  means 
what  it  so  very  plainly  states, — should  it  be 
thought  possible,  without  impiety,  to  under- 
stand our  Lord  to  mean  any  thing  else  than 
just  that  at  the  moment  when  he  was  speak- 
ing, he  had  absolute  power  over  the  life  which 
his  hearers  saw  him  possess,  to  lay  it  down 
and  to  take  it  up  at  his  pleasure,  let  us  con- 
sider the  purpose  for  which  he  made  the  de- 
claration. His  object  was  to  convince  his  au- 
ditors that  he  was  the  Life,  and  that  therefore 
all  who  committed  themselves  to  him  would 
be  perfectly  safe,  for  none  could  pluck  them 
out  of  his  hand.  And  the  proof,  that  in  him 
their  life  was  safe,  was,  that  he  himself  had  a 
life  which  no  man  could  take  from  him, — a  life 
over  which  death  had  no  power.  Now  this 
is  just  the  ground  on  which  our  confidence  in 
him  rests,  that  '•  as  the  Father  hath  life  in  him- 
self, so  hath  he  given  the  Son  to  have  life  in 
himself."  But  if,  when  the  hour  of  trial  come, 
it  was  found  that  he  could  not  resist  the  power 
of  death  in  himself,  nor  realize  the  declaration 
that  he  made,  that  no  man  could  take  his  life 
from  him, — then  how  can  we  possibly  rely 


92  THE    INCARNATION. 

upon  him,  that  he  can  repel  the  power  of  death 
from  us,  or  fulfil  the  promise  that  he  has  made 
to  us,  that  none  shall  ever  be  able  to  pluck  us 
out  of  his  hand  ?  He  who  could  not  save 
himself  from  the  grasp  of  the  King  of  terrors, 
can  afford  us  little  confidence  in  his  power  to 
save  us.  If,  then,  to  maintain  that  Christ  was 
a  fallen,  sinful  man,  and  as  incapable  of  re- 
sisting death  as  we  are, — if  to  maintain  that 
when  the  hour  of  trial  came,  he  conquered  not 
death,  but  death  conquered  him,  if  this  be  not 
directly  to  falsify  his  own  express  declaration 
and  to  overthrow  the  very  pillars  of  the  Chris- 
tian's hope,  I  know  not  what  can  be  considered 
as  doing  so. 

It  is  of  no  avail  to  tell  us  that,  at  his  resur- 
rection, this  gift  of  having  life  in  himself, — 
this  quickening  power  was  restored.  For  how 
do  we  know  that  he  holds  that  gift  now,  by  a 
firmer  tenure  than  that  by  which  he  held  it 
before  ?  When  he  declared  to  the  Jews,  that 
the  Father  had  given  him  power  to  have  life 
in  himself,  and  further  assured  them  that  he 
had  perfect  power  over  that  life,  he  had  all  the 
fulness  of  the  Godhead  dwelling  in  him,  to 
enable  him  to  resist  any  violence  by  which  he 
might  be  assailed.  Can  he  have  more  than 
all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  to  guard  it  now  ? 
Yet  we  are  told  that  a  stronger  than  he  came, 


THE    INCARNATION.  93 

and  by  violence  took  away  the  gift,  which  the 
Father  had  given  him  for  the  life  of  the  world. 
After  the  restoration  of  that  gift,  are  we  not 
left  to  dread,  that,  by  similar  violence,  it  may 
again  be  taken  away,  since  assuredly  it  can 
be  secured  by  no  stronger  power  now  than  it 
was  at  first  ? 

Another  text,  which  very  clearly  evinces  our 
Lord's  victory  over  death,  is  in  Hebrews,  v.  7. 
"Who,  in  the  days  of  his  flesh,  when  he  had 
offered    up    prayers    and   supplications,   with 
strong  crying  and   tears,  unto   him  that  was 
able  to  save  him  from  death,  and  was  heard, 
in  that  he  feared."     To  him,  as  man,  death 
was    naturally  terrible ;    and,  coming  to  him 
armed  with  terrors  incalculably  greater  than  he 
ever  assaulted  any  other  man  with,  awakened 
prayers  and  supplications  of  the  most  earnest 
and  pathetic   description.      One   of  them  we 
have  recorded  in  Psalm  xxii,  which  he  repeated 
on  the    cross:    "Deliver    my   soul  from    the 
sword  ;  my  darling  from  the  power  of  the  dog. 
Save  me  from  the  lion's  mouth,  for  thou  hast 
heard    me  from  the    horns   of  the   unicorns." 
Such  were  his  prayers  in  the  hour  of  his  fear- 
ful conflict  with  the  powers  of  darkness.     And 
how  was  he  heard?    Was  it  by  being  given 
up,  a  bound  captive,  into  the  power  of  death, 
and  of  him  who  had  the  power  of  death,  that 


94  THE    INCARNATION. 

is,  the  devil  ?  No  ;  but  he  was  heard  by  being 
sustained  against  all  their  violence,  till  he  tri- 
umphed over  them  on  the  cross,  and  death, 
and  he  that  had  the  power  of  death,  fled  away 
baffled,  and  found  that  they  had  met  with  one 
mail}  against  whom  their  utmost  efforts  could 
avail  nothing.  And  then  he  voluntarily  laid 
down  a  life  which  was  still  his  own  to  give  or 
to  retain  ;  and  he  entered  into  the  domain  of 
death,  not  as  a  captive,  but  as  a  conqueror,  to 
fulfil  the  prediction,  "  O  death,  I  will  be  thy 
plagues  ;  O  grave,  I  will  be  thy  destruction." 
Could  he  accomplish  this  prediction  by  being 
overcome  by  death  on  the  cross?  No;  had 
death,  and  he  who  had  the  power  of  death,  for 
one  moment  overmastered  him,  then  was  every 
hope  of  a  lost  world  extinguished,  and  that  for 
ever. 

Again,  if  the  Prince  of  this  world  conquered 
Christ  upon  the  cross,  and  violently  took  away 
his  life,  then  it  is  clear  that  he  was  not  then, 
"  King  of  kings,  and  Lord  of  lords  ;"  he  had 
met  with  his  superior ;  he  was  mt  even  a  king 
at  all,  but  a  fallen,  sinfu-  man.  But  how  then 
could  he  save  men  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world?  And  if  the  cross  was  a  scene  of  his 
defeat,  and  the  monument  of  his  weakness,  how 
can  it  also  be  the  foundation  of  our  hopes,  and 
the  ground  of  our  glorying?  Or  with  what  truth 


THE  INCARNATIOJf.  95 

could  the  Apostle  say  that  he  triumphed  over 
principalities  and  powers  on  the  cross,  if  there 
they,  in  reality,  triumphed  over  him  ? 

Finally  I  appeal,  as  a  proof  of  the  regal  char- 
acter of  our  Lord's  death,  to  the  circumstances 
that  attended  it,  all  of  which  strongly  show  that 
at  the  moment  when  it  took  place  it  was  perfect- 
ly voluntary.  When  the  band  of  men  and  of- 
ficers went  out  to  take  him,  he  showed  how 
easily  he  could  have  escaped  out  of  their  hands, 
for  "  as  soon  as  he  had  said  unto  them,  I  am  he, 
they  went  backwards  and  fell  to  the  ground," 
overwhelmed,  doubtless  by  some  exhibition  of 
his  divine  power.  And  when  his  disciples 
would  have  defended  him,  he  told  them  that, 
if  he  wanted  defence,  he  could  have,  not 
twelve  unarmed  apostles,  but  twelve  legions 
of  angels  for  that  purpose.  "But  then,  how 
shall  the  scriptures  be  fulfilled,  that  thus  it 
must  be."  Even  after  he  was  fastened  to  the 
cross,  he  showed  that  he  was  still  the  life,  in 
the  promise  made  to  the  penitent  thief.  What 
could  possibly  induce  that  malefactor  to  apply 
in  such  circumstances  to  a  fellow  sufferer,  as 
incapable,  according  to  some,  of  resisting  the 
death  to  which  both  had  been  doomed,  as  him- 
self/ It  is  unquestionable  that  he  had  observ- 
ed in  Christ  something  more  than  mortal, 
when  he  addressed  to  him  the  prayer,  "  Lord, 


96  THE  INCARNATION. 

remember  me  when  thou  comest  into  thy  king- 
dom."    And  why  has  the  Holy  Ghost  recorded 
the  fact,  but  lo  show,  that  he  who,  in  such  a 
situation,  could  make  the  magnificent  promise, 
"  Verily  I  say  unto  thee,  to-day  shall  thou  be 
with  me  in  Paradise,"  was  not  himself  the  weak 
victim  of  death  ?     And  are  we  to  say  that  he 
who  thus  almost  with  his  dying  breath,  con- 
ferred eternal  life,  was  unable  to  save  his  own 
life  from  the  assault  of  death  '/     And  when  he 
had  endured  all  that  his  foes,  whether  men  or 
devils,  could  inflict :  when  the  darkness  passed 
away,  and  the  victory  was  won ;  then  did  he 
cry  out,  not.  with  the  feeble  breathings  of  a 
man  whose  agonies  had  worn  him  down  to  the 
very  lowest  stage  of  existence,  and  of  whom 
death  had  all  but  taken  possession,  but  with 
the  shout  of  a  conqueror,  whose  life  after  all 
the  assaults  of  death,  after  innumerable  deaths 
had  been  inflicted  upon  him,  was  yet  as  whole 
within  him  as  it  had  ever  been,  thus  plainly 
intimating,  that,  even  at  that  moment,  instead 
of  bowing  his  head  and  giving  up  the  ghost, 
he  could  have  stepped  down  from   the  cross. 
"  But  then  how  should  the  scriptures  be  ful- 
filled?"    "When  the  Centurion  saw  that  he 
50  cried  out,  and  gave  up  the  ghost,  he  said, 
Truly  this  man  was  the  Son  of  God."     And 
deeply  is  it  to  be  regretted  that  Christian  di- 


THE  INCARNATION.  97 

vines  should  adopt  systems  of  theology*  which 
compel  them  to  deny  a  fact  so  clearly  evinced 
to  the  Centurion  by  the  evidence  of  his  own 
senses,  as  to  draw  from  him  this  confession, — 
a  confession  which  the  Holy  Ghost  has  thought 
good  to  record  for  our  conviction,  that  this  MAN 
freely  gave  up,  for  the  redemption  of  a  lost 
world,  a  life  which  neither  earth  nor  hell  could 
wring  from  him,  and  over  which  death  had  no 
power. 

It  was  essentially  necessary  that  he  who  was 
to  deliver  others  from  their  sins,  should  himself 
be  perfectly  free  from  any  thing  to  which  such 
terms  could  have  the  remotest  application. 
And  it  was  necessary  that  we  should  have  the 
clearest  and  most  decisive  evidence  of  this ', 
for  upon  the  certainty  that.  Christ  was  not 
fallen  or  sinful,  depends  the  reality  of  the 
atonement,  and  the  certainty  of  all  our  hopes. 
And  never  was  any  thing  so  severely  tried, 
and  never  was  testimony  so  decisive  as  that 
which  proves  the  total  sinlessness  of  the  man 
Christ  Jesus  The  traitor  who  betrayed  him 
pronounced  him  innocent.  His  accusers  he 
could  boldly  challenge  to  convince  him  of  sin. 

*  This  refers  to  the  doctrine  freely  broached  and  advo- 
cated at  the  time  the  above  was  first  written,  that  the  flesh 
of  Christ  was  sinful  or  at  least  peccable,  and  that  Christ 
«  did  no  sin'  only  because  '  the  will  of  the  spirit  enforced 
the  flesh  to  do  it  unwilling  service. 

9 


98  THE    INCARNATION. 

The  sentence  of  the  judge  who  doomed  him 
to  the  cross  was.  "  I  find  no  fault  in  him." 
Much  guilt  however  might  have  been  in  him, 
which  no  mortal  eye  could  detect ;  and  in  a 
matter  in  which  we  are  so  deeply  and  vitally 
concerned,  much  stronger  evidence  than  that  of 
the  Jews  and  of  Pilate  was  necessary ;  and 
much  stronger  evidence  is  given.  The  justice  of 
God  assailed  him,  armed  with  all  the  demands 
of  a  violated  law.  saying,  "pay  me  that  thou 
owest."  The  debt  was  paid,  the  penalty  was 
endured,  every  demand  was  satisfied,  and  di- 
vine justice  retired,  saying,  "  I  find  no  fault  in 
him  ;  I  have  scourged  him  with  every  strife 
due  as  the  penalty  of  the  law ;  let  him  go  ! 
The  powers  of  darkness  were  let  loose  upon 
him,  to  try  if  their  malice  could  find  aught  in 
him  with  which  they  might  claim  alliance,  or 
on  which  they  might  ground  the  slightest 
charge  against  him  ;  and  after  efforts,  the  pow- 
er of  which  we  can  little  apprehend,  they  fled 
baffled  away,  howling  out  in  anguish  their  own 
hopeless  doom,  while  forced  to  say,  '  We  find 
no  fault  in  him  ;  we  have  scourged  him  with 
worse  than  scorpion's  stings  and  have  been 
compelled  to  let  him  go.'  Thus  heaven,  and 
earth,  and  hell  unite  in  proclaiming  to  us  the 
entire  and  perfect  sinlessncss  of  God's  holy 
child  Jesus,  and  pouring  on  our  hearts  the 


THE    INCARNATION.  99 

conviction,  that  in  him  was  no  fault,— nothing 
which  the  inexorable  justice  of  heaven  could 
condemn,  and  nothing  on  which  the  unmitigat- 
ed malice  of  hell  could  lay  hold. 

When  the  Word  became  flesh,  he  was  not 
less  the  Word  and  the  power  of  God, — not 
less  the  light  and  life  of  men, — not  less  the 
ruler  and  Lord  of  all,  than  he  was  before  the 
Incarnation.  He  did  not  cease  to  be  God 
when  he  became  man.  When  he  bore  hunger 
and  thirst,  he  was  nevertheless  showing,  by 
changing  water  into  wine,  and  by  feeding 
thousands  with  a  few  loaves,  that  he  it  was 
who  was  indeed  supplying  the  wants  of  every 
living  thing  ;  and  that  he  endured  hunger  and 
thirst  from  no  defect  of  power.  When  he  had 
not  where  to  lay  his  head,  he  was  not  the  less 
"  God  over  all,  blessed  forever."  When,  wea- 
ried, he  rested  on  Jacob's  well,  the  pillars  of 
heaven,  and  the  foundations  of  the  earth  rested 
securely  on  his  sustaining  power.  And  never 
did  he  give  so  splendid  a  proof  that  he  was 
indeed  the  Life,  as  when  he  died.  For  the 
mystery  and  the  marvel  which  angels  desired 
to  look  into  was,  how  he,  by  any  possibility, 
could  die.  But  they  knew  not  all  the  extent 
of  his  power,  they  knew  not  that  he  had  the 
keys  of  hell  and  of  death,  and  that,  rebelling 
as  they  were  against  heaven,  they  were  still 


100  THE    INCARNATION. 

completely  subject  to  him,  till  they  saw  him 
tread  the  region  of  mortality,  and  enter  at  his 
own  pleasure,  unsubdued,  as  a  conqueror,  into 
their  dreary  domain.  Then  indeed,  when  he 
died,  did  they  know,  and  for  the  first  time  know, 
in  all  the  extent  of  its  meaning,  that  he  was  the 
Life. 

Christ  then  was  King  when  he  was  on  the 
earth, — a  King  in  the  lowest  state  of  his  deep 
humiliation  ;  no  less  than  now  when  he  is  ex- 
alted to  the  right  hand  of  the  Father  ;  and  in  his 
very  humiliation  giving  the  most  splendid  and 
decisive  proof  of  his  omnipotent  power.  Be- 
fore proceeding  farther,  it  will  be  proper  to 
notice  some  of  the  duties  which  we  owe  to  him 
as  our  King. 

The  first  of  these,  which  I  shall  notice  is, 
to  obey  his  laws.  To  neglect  this  is  to  deny 
that  he  is  King.  "Why  call  ye  me  Lord, 
Lord,  and  do  not  the  things  which  I  say  ? " 
It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  many  profess  to 
•rely  on  him  as  their  propitiation,  who  pay  no 
great  regard  to  his  laws  ;  and  think  themselves 
perfectly  safe,  while  living  in  the  habitual  neg- 
lect of  some  of  his  commands ;  nay,  who  are 
less  careful  to  avoid  sin  just  on  account  of  the 
sufficiency  of  him  on  whom  they  profess  to 
rely  for  the  pardon  of  sin.  But  we  may  rest 
assured  that  if  Christ  be  not  a  king  whom  we 


THE    INCARNATION-  101 

obey,  neither  is  he  a  priest  who  will  save  us. 
To  hope  that  we  can  be  saved  without  obe- 
dience, is  not  only  to  hope  against  hope,  but 
against  possibility  ;  for  surely  it  is  not  possible 
to  be  saved  from  sin  while  yet  we  are  living 
in  sin.  Nor  is  our  obedience  to  be  limited  by 
our  convenience,  our  pleasure,  nor  our  present 
interest,  nor  by  the  sufferings  to  which  we  may 
be  called  in  its  discharge.  That  is  no  obe- 
dience which  extends  only  as  far  as  we  find  it 
convenient.  It  was  not  such. obedience  that 
was  yielded  by  Christ  for  our  sakes,  when  he 
submitted  to  "  learn  obedience  by  the  things 
which  he  suffered."  Nor  was  it  such  obe- 
dience that  he  required  of  us,  when  he  said, 
"  If  any  man  will  come  after  me,  let  him  deny 
himself,  and  take  up  his  cross  and  follow  me." 
But  we  are  required,  not  only  to  obey  the 
laws  of  Christ,  but  to  approve  them, —  to  love 
them.  "  Bodily  service  profile th  nothing  ;  " 
and  our  external  compliance  with  a  law  which 
we  hate  in  our  hearts,  is  by  our  King  consid- 
ered as  no  obedience  at  all.  The  reason  of 
this  is  sufficiently  obvious.  Our  obedience  is 
required  that  it  may  do  good,  not  to  God,  who 
needs  not  our  services,  but  to  ourselves  ;  that 
it  may  establish  in  us  such  habits  as  will  fit  us 
for  the  occupations  and  enjoyments  of  a  higher 
;state  of  existence.  But  if  it  proceed  from  any 
9* 


102  THE    INCARNATION. 

improper  principle,  then  its  operation  will  be 
in  direct  opposition  to  this  end,  and  conse- 
quently must  meet  the  disapprobation  of  him 
41  the  end  of  whose  commandment  is  charity, 
out  of  a  pure  heart,  and  of  a  good  conscience, 
and  of  faith  unfeigned."  Every  action  strength- 
ens the  principle  from  which  it  proceeds  ;  and 
being  often  repeated,  renders  the  exercise  of 
that  principle  necessary  to  our  happiness.  And 
when  our  love  to  God  and  man  has  been  so 
"  rooted  and  grounded"  in  us  by  a  long  course 
of  holiness,  that  the  exercise  of  it  constitutes 
all  our  felicity,  we  are  then  fitted  for  the  king- 
dom of  heaven.  Whereas  the  most  perfect 
obedience,  were  it  possible  for  such  obedience 
to  proceed  from  any  other  principle,  would  not 
in  the  slightest  degree  promote  our  moral  im- 
provement, nor  our  meetness  for  the  society  of 
angels  and  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  per- 
fect. 

Another  duty  which  we  owe  to  our  King  is 
to  depend  upon  his  power.  If  such  an  obe- 
dience as  has  been  described  be  essentially  re- 
quisite, it  may  be  said,  "  Who  then  can  be 
saved?"  Had  outward  obedience  only  been 
necessary,  even  that  is  difficult.  But  who  can 
change  the  whole  current  of  his  thoughts,  af- 
fections, and  desires, — can  bring  himself  to 
hate  and  despise  what  he  loves  with  ah1  his 


THE  INCARNATION.  103 

heart, — and  to  love  and  delight  in  all  that  he  is 
most  averse  to?  Can  we  make  ourselves  new 
creatures  ?  No.  We  could  as  easily  have 
created  ourselves  at  first.  But  this  will  by  no 
means  form  any  apology  for  disobedience. 
For  as  the  wisdom  of  our  Prophet  removes 
our  ignorance,  and  the  sacrifice  of  our  Priest 
removes  our  condemnation,  so  that  we  are 
without  excuse  if  we  be  either  ignorant  or  in 
a  state  of  alienation  from  God ;  in  the  same 
manner,  the  power  of  our  King  removes  our 
moral  weakness,  and  endues  us  with  strength 
to  triumph  over  the  foes  whom  he  has  conquer- 
ed, so  that  we  are  inexcusable  if  we  remain  the 
servants  of  sin.  And  as  the  renovation  of  the 
heart  is  a  gradual  thing,  .the  grace  that  enables 
us  to  do  it,  must  be  sought  from  him  daily. 
The  soul  needs  its  daily  bread  not  less  than 
the  body. 

Another  duty  which  we  owe  to  our  King  is, 
to  confide  in  his  goodness.  It  is  for  the  pur- 
pose of  delivering  us  out  of  the  hand  of  all  our 
enemies,  and  of  promoting  our  welfare,  that 
the  Mediator  is  exalted  to  the  throne  of  the 
universe,  and  appointed  the  sole  disposer  of 
every  event  in  which  we  are  concerned.  We 
cannot  for  a  moment  doubt  that  he  is  abundant- 
ly able  to  give  us  every  thing  necessary  for  our 
happiness,  and  nothing  can  be  more  offensive 


104  THE    INCARNATION. 

than  to  distrust  his  willingness  to  do  so.  He 
has  given  us  the  proofs  of  his  love  to  little  pur- 
pose, if  we  "  faint  when  we  are  rebuked  of 
him,"  and,  when  he  tries  us,  presently  con- 
dude  that  he  has  forsaken  us.  This  is  a  sin 
for  which  Israel  was  often  reproved.  "  Why 
sayest  thou,  O  Jacob,  and  speakest,  0  Israel, 
my  way  is  hid  from  the  Lord,  and  my  judg- 
ment is  passed  over  from  my  God  T'  And 
surely,  if  we  distrust  our  King,  who  assumed 
our  nature,  and  submitted  to  our  infirmities, 
that  we  might  be  more  certainly  assured  of  his 
sympathy,  we  can  have  less  excuse  than  Israel 
had.  If,  therefore,  we  be  visited  with  severe 
trials,  let  us  not  hastily  say  with  Jacob,  "  All 
these  things  are  against  me,"  for,  if  our  dis- 
trust do  not  lead  us  to  take  improper  means  to 
escape  from  them,  we  shall  find  that  all  these 
things  are,  in  reality,  working  together  for  our 
good. 

Another  duty  which  we  owe  to  our  King  is, 
to  preserve  the  peace  of  his  kingdom.  The 
subjects  of  Christ's  kingdom  are  commanded 
to  love  one  another,  and  that  even  as  Christ 
has  loved  them.  Had  this  law  been  always 
acted  upon,  it  is  not  easy  to  estimate  the  hap- 
piness of  the  effect  that  would  have  been  pro- 
duced. And  the  miserable  effects  that  pro- 
ceed from  the  dissensions  among  Christ's  sub' 


THE    INCARNATION.  105 

jects,  and  the  weakness  that  has  been  intro- 
duced into  his  kingdom,  by  its  being  divided 
into  so  many  different  parties,  need  not  be 
pointed  out.  Christ's  kingdom  has  thus  been 
rent,  and  its  peace  destroyed  by  the  pride  of 
men,  who,  having  exalted  their  own  opinion, 
upon  some  indifferent  matter,  into  an  article 
of  fundamental  importance,  have  renounced 
the  communion  of  all  who  refuse  to  adopt  the 
same  notion.  And  whenever  communion 
among  Christians  is  broken  off,  a  heavy 
weight  of  guilt  attaches  to  that  party  which 
causes  the  schism.  In  order  to  avoid  this  guilt, 
every  disciple  of  Jesus  ought  to  be  very  cau- 
tious in  refusing  to  hold  communion  with  a 
fellow- subject,  lest,  when  both  parties  stand 
before  their  King,  this  refusal  be  decided  to 
have  proceeded  from  no  sufficient  cause. 
Even  the  errors  of  Christians  afford  no  just 
ground  of  separating  from  their  communion, 
excepting  in  one  of  these  two  cases, — either 
when  they  err  fundamentally,  and  by  so  doing, 
cease  to  be  Christians  ;  in  which  case  their 
communion  is  in  reality  no  communion,  and, 
in  renouncing  it,  we  make  no  schism ; — or 
when,  supposing  their  errors  to  be  of  a  less 
important  nature,  they  require  us  distinctly 
and  formally  to  profess  our  approbation  of 
those  errors,  against  our  own  convictions  ;  in 


106  THE   INCARNATION. 

which  case  we  cannot  hold  communion  with 
them,  without  being  hypocrites,  and  are  bound 
to  separate  from  them  ;  but  the  guilt  of  the 
schism  rests  with  them.  But  to  separate  from 
the  communion  of  men  whom  we  believe  to  be 
true  Christians,  merely  because,  on  some  points 
of  inferior  moment;  they  maintain  opinions  dif- 
ferent from  our  own, — while  they  do  not  re- 
quire us  to  adopt  or  profess  these  opinions, — 
is  a  degree  of  presumption  and  arrogance 
which  it  is  hard  to  reconcile  with  the  spirit  of 
genuine  Christianity.  Surely  he  has  much 
need  to  inquire  what  he  can  offer  to  his  Judge 
as  an  apology  for  his  conduct,  who  has  burst 
asunder  the  Redeemer's  perfect  bond  of  char- 
ity, and  cast  away  that  cord  of  love,  by  which 
the  great  Head  of  the  church  has  united  all 
the  different  members  of  his  mystical  body  in 
the  closest  intimacy ;  who  has,  by  his  conduct, 
declared,  that  unless  he  himself  be  the  head, 
he  will  be  no  part  of  the  body  ;  and  who,  re- 
fusing to  acknowledge  the  disciples  of  Christ 
as  his  fellow-subjects,  has  renounced  their  com- 
munion, unless  they  would  renounce  every 
opinion  which  he  does  not  approve,  and  adopt, 
on  his  authority,  terms  of  communion  which 
Christ  never  appointed. 

Another  duty  which  we  owe  to  our  King,  is, 
to  extend  his  kingdom.     That  this  is  our  duty 


THE    INCARNATION.  107 

hardly  needs  to  be  proved.  We  are  com- 
manded to  exhibit  in  our  conduct  the  excellence 
of  the  principles  of  Christianity,  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  to  allure  others  to  cultivate  them, — to 
make  "  our  light  so  to  shine  before  men,  that 
they  may  see  our  good  works,  and  glorify  our 
Father  who  is  in  heaven."  We  are  soldiers 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  as  good  soldiers, 
should  do  every  thing  in  our  power  to  promote 
the  designs  of  our  leader.  To  rescue  an  im- 
mortal being  from  the  dominion  of  sin,  and 
make  him  a  subject  of  the  King  of  kings,  is  a 
nobler  victory  than  any  that  the  historian  has 
recorded,  or  the  poet  sung.  If  ever  enthusi- 
asm be  amiable  or  useful,  then  surely  it  is  so 
when  it  regards  the  noblest  object  that  ever 
awakened  the  desires  or  called  forth  the  exer- 
tions of  any  human  being  ;  and  the  Christian 
may  be  permitted  to  indulge  no  ordinary  de- 
gree of  ardour  in  the  prosecution  of  a  design, 
for  the  accomplishment  of  which  the  Son  of 
God  did  not  hesitate  to  die.  If,  then,  we  re- 
gard either  the  authority  or  example  of  our 
King,  if  we  would  wish,  when  our  days  are 
at  an  end,  to  say  that  they  have  not  been  spent 
in  vain,  and  that  we  have  not  been  useless  mem- 
bers of  his  kingdom,  nor  careless  of  its  pros 
perity, — if  we  wish  to  associate  at  last  with 
the  glorious  men  who  have  instructed  the 


108  THE    INCARNATION. 

church  by  their  wisdom,  adorned  it  by  their 
holiness,  and  cemented  its  foundation  with  their 
blood,  then  let  us  exert  ourselves,  by  example, 
by  instruction,  by  every  means  in  our  power, 
to  promote  the  prosperity,  and  extend  the  limits 
of  that  kingdom  into  which  we  ourselves  have 
by  the  grace  of  God  been  brought.  For  "  they 
that  be  wise,  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of 
the  firmament,  aud  they  that  turn  many  unto 
righteousness,  as  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever." 

We  have  thus  traced  our  Saviour  in  the 
discharge  of  all  his  offices  of  Prophet,  Priest, 
and  King.  For  the  discharge  of  all  of  them 
his  death,  and  consequently  his  incarnation, 
was  essentially  necessary.  He  discharged  the 
the  duties  resulting  from  these  offices  from  the 
beginning.  He  discharged  them  all  during  his 
sojourn  on  the  earth,  and  we  have  seen  that  in 
his  death  he  gave  the  most  complete  exhibition 
of  each  of  his  offices.  Christ  is  not  and  never 
was  divided.  When  speaking  of  his  different 
offices,  we  ascribe,  and  properly  ascribe,  one 
action  or  characteristic,  to  one  office  more  pe- 
culiarly than  to  another  ;  yet  ought  we  never 
to  forget  that,  in  his  one  person,  the  three 
offices  were  inseparably  combined,  and, 
throughout  his  life,  were  manifested  together. 
For  what  is  it  that  gives  to  his  every  prophe- 


THE    INCARNATION.  109 

tic  act,  by  which  he  manifests  the  Father,  so 
high  a  claim  upon  our  reverential  regard  ?  Is 
it  not  this,  that  his  every  prophetic  act  com- 
bines with  it  all  the  sacredness  of  his  sacerdo- 
tal character,  and  all  the  authority  of  his  re- 
gal power ;  so  that,  if  we  refuse  to  be  taught 
by  him,  we  cut  ourselves  off  from  all  partici- 
pation in  his  sacerdotal  grace,  and  expose  our- 
selves to  be  crushed  beneath  the  weight  of 
that  iron  rod  by  which  he  will  dash  his  ene- 
mies to  pieces  ?  Hence  it  is  said  that  "  the 
people  were  astonished  at  his  doctrine,  for  he 
taught  them  as  one  having  authority."  And 
when  he  performs  any  sacerdotal  act,  as  when 
he  said  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy,  "  Thy  sins  be 
forgiven  thee,"  is  it  not  also  a  prophetic  act, 
manifesting  the  grace  and  the  power  of  the 
Godhead  1  and  is  it  not  an  efficacious  act,  sim- 
ply because  what,  as  a  Priest  he  has  grace  to 
promise,  as  a  King  he  has  power  to  bestow  ? 
And  his  every  regal  act  is  performed  for  the 
the  purpose  of  giving  power  and  efficacy  to  his 
prophetic  revelations,  and  to  his  sacerdotal 
grace.  And  the  offices,  thus  united  in  him 
through  his  whole  life,  were  not  separated  at 
its  close.  His  sufferings  in  the  garden  and  on 
the  cross,  not  only  constituted  a  perfect  satis- 
faction to  divine  justice  for  our  sins,  but  form- 
ed at  the  same  time,  by  far  the  most  impres- 
10 


110  THE    INCARNATION. 

sive  and  instructive  portion  of  his  prophetic 
manifestation  of  the  divine  character,  and  also 
the  most  victorious  and  triumphant  exhibition 
of  his  regal  power,  when  the  serpent's  head 
was  bruised,  and  principalities  and  powers  de- 
feated and  triumphed  over. 

There  remains  but  one  view  of  the  subject 
to  be  presented,  and  that  I  cannot  better  give, 
than  in  a  comment  on  the  following  passage  of 
Scripture. 

"  Forasmuch,  then,  as  the  children  are  par- 
takers of  flesh  and  blood,  he  also  himself  like- 
wise took  part  of  the  same  ;  that  through  death 
he  might  destroy  him  that  had  the  power  of 
death,  that  is,  the  devil  j  and  deliver  them,  who, 
through  fear  of  death,  were  all  their  lifetime 
subject  to  bondage.  For  verily  he  taketh  not 
hold  of  angels ;  but  of  the  seed  of  Abraham 
he  taketh  hold.  Wherefore  in  all  things  ifc 
behooved  him  to  be  made  like  unto  his  bre- 
thren ;  that  he  might  be  a  merciful  and  faith- 
ful High  Priest  in  things  pertaining  to  God,  to 
make  reconciliation  for  the  sins  of  the  people." 
Heb.  ii.  14-17. 

In  the  sixteenth  verse  I  have  followed  the 
marginal  reading.  I  have  done  so,  because  it 
is  the  literal  translation  of  the  Apostle's  words  j 
because  it  appears  to  be  necessary  to  his  chain 
of  reasoning ;  and  because  the  received  reading 


Jjf 

THE    INCARNATION.  Ill 

seems  to  involve  an  unmeaning  tautology.  The 
fact,  I  conceive,  which  the  Apostle  meant  to 
state  is,  that  he  undertook  to  help  not  angels, 
but  men,  "  wherefore,"  he  adds,  u  in  all  things 
it  behooved  him  to  be  made  like  to  his  bre- 
thren"— like,  not  to  angels,  but  to  men. 

In  order  to  render  my  view  of  this  passage 
as  clear  as  possible,  I  would  direct  the  atten- 
tion of  the  reader  to  a  principle  that  is  often 
exemplified  in  Scripture.  I  refer  to  the  fre- 
quent preference  of  the  younger  to  the  elder. 
Of  the  two  first-born  of  men,  Cain  and  Abel, 
the  younger  was  chosen  and  the  elder  rejected. 
Of  the  three  sons  of  Noah,  the  second  pro- 
genitor of  mankind,  Shem,  the  youngest,  was 
chosen  as  the  heir  of  promise.  Of  the  two 
sons  of  Abraham,  Ishmael  and  Isaac,  though 
Abraham  had  repeatedly  prayed,  "  Oh  that 
Ishmael  might  live  before  thee,"  it  was  said, 
"  in  Isaac  shall  thy  seed  be  called."  Of  the 
two  sons  of  Isaac,  Esau  and  Jacob,  before  they 
were  born,  it  was  said,  "  the  elder  shall  serve 
the  younger."  Of  the  two  sons  of  Joseph, 
Ephraim  the  younger  was  preferred  to  Manas- 
seh  the  eider.  Of  the  sons  of  Jesse,  David 
the  youngest,  and  whom  his  father  did  not  even 
think  it  worth  while  to  present  to  the  prophet, 
was  chosen  to  be  king  of  Israel.  And  to 
name  no  more,  of  all  the  sons  of  David,  So- 


112  THE    INCARNATION. 

lomon  was  chosen  to  build   a  temple   to  the 
Lord. 

Now,  a  fact  of  this  nature  so  frequently 
occurring,  and  so  sedulously  recorded,  must 
be  considered  as  pointedly  intended  to  direct 
our  attention  to  the  principle  involved  in  it ; 
and  the  Apostle  Paul,  in  expounding  one  of 
these  instances,  has  taught  us  how  to  under- 
stand all  the  rest.  They  are  intended  to  mani- 
fest the  sovereignty  of  the  Lord. — to  show  that 
he  seeth  not  as  man  seeth,  nor  chooseth  as  man 
would  choose, — to  show  that  all  power  and  all 
excellence  are  from  God  alone.  And,  there- 
fore, "God  hath  chosen  the  foolish  things  of 
the  world  to  confound  the'  wise  ;  and  God  hath 
chosen  the  weak  things  of  the  world  to  con- 
found the  things  that  are  mighty ;  and  base 
things  of  the  world,  and  things  that  are  despised 
hath  God  chosen,  yea,  and  things  which  are 
not,  to  bring  to  naught  the  things  that  are." 
And  why  ?  "  That  no  flesh  should  glory  in  his 
presence," — that  all  should  own  that  whatever 
grace,  or  goodness,  or  excellency  is  in  them, 
it  is  not  from  themselves,  but  from  God.  and 
that,  if  they  differ  from  others,  it  is  God  who 
makelh  them  to  differ.  This  principle,  there- 
fore, which  is  involved  in  the  preference  of  the 
younger  to  the  elder,  and  to  which  our  atten- 
tion is  directed  not  once  nor  twice,  but  many 


THE    INCARNATION.  113 

times,  is  seen  in  all  the  dispensations  of  God, 
that  his  own  sovereignty  may  be  manifested 
in  them  all. 

While  every  thing  in  the  works  of  men  has 
a  tendency  to  degenerate,  God  has  from  the 
beginning  manifested  that  his  works  have  a 
very  different  character,  and  are  continually 
going  on  from  good  to  better  in  endless  pro- 
gression, and  that  one  dispensation  only  pre- 
pares the  way  for,  and  gives  place  to  another 
that  is  more  perfect.  Thus  the  patriarchal 
dispensation  prepared  the  way  for  the  Jewish, 
the  Jewish  for  the  Christian,  the  present  state 
of  the  Christian  for  its  millennial  state,  and 
that  for  something  still  more  glorious.  And 
thus  when  the  Gospel  was  first  established,  it 
was  not  by  the  wisdom,  or  the  wealth,  or  the 
power  of  man,  but  by  feeble  means  in  oppo- 
sition to  all  these.  The  treasure  was  com- 
mitted to  earthen  vessels,  that  the  excellency 
of  the  power  might  be  seen  to  be  of  God. 

But  these  instances,  and  many  others  that 
might  be  added  to  them, — the  preference  of  the 
younger  to  the  elder  in  so  many  cases, — the 
choice  of  the  Jews  to  be  God's  peculiar  people, 
when  they  were  the  fewest  of  all  people, — the 
choice  of  the  fishermen  of  Galilee  to  build  the 
church, — while  they  all  exhibit  the  sovereignty 
of  God,  are  but  very  obscure,  and  partial,  and 
10* 


114  THE    INCARNATION. 

limited  exhibitions  of  it,  compared  with  that 
universal  and  glorious  manifestation  of  it  re- 
ferred to  in  the  text  under  discussion,  where 
the  choice  lay  not  between  one  individual  and 
another,  nor  between  one  nation  and  another, 
but  between  two  lost  WORLDS.  There  stood 
before  God  two  fallen  families, — fallen  angels 
and  fallen  men.  Alike  they  were  doomed  to 
wo  for  their  sins,  and  unless  an  almighty  arm 
should  lay  hold  on  them,  alike  would  they  both 
have  sunk  in  remediless  misery.  It  belonged 
to  God  alone  to  determine  whether  he  wrould 
save  one  or  both  of  these  families,  or  leave  them 
both  to  perish.  And  when  he  had  announced 
his  determination  to  save  one  of  them,  that  the 
work  of  redemption  might  afford  a  new  mani- 
festation of  the  divine  perfections,  and  give  a 
more  clear  and  a  more  glorious  revelation  of 
these  perfections  than  his  creatures  could  ever 
otherwise  have  seen,  it  still  remained  with  him 
to  determine  which  of  the  two  fallen  families 
should  be  chosen  as  the  objects  in  whose  sal- 
vation this  manifestation  should  be  made.  And 
O  let  our  souls  rejoice  that  here  also  the  prin- 
ciple, to  which  our  attention  is  so  carefully 
directed  in  Scripture, — and  so  carefully  di- 
rected just  for  the  purpose  that  we  might  not 
overlook  it,  or  fail  to  see  it  here, — was  acted 
upon.  The  younger  was  preferred  to  the 


THE     INCARNATION.  115 

elder, — though  carnal  judgment  would  pro- 
bably have  made  choice  of  angels,  the  ori- 
ginally nobler  family,  and  have  left  the  meaner 
creature  of  clay  to  perish. 

This  is  the  glorious  and  happy  truth  so  clearly 
expressed  here  by  the  apostle,  "  He  taketh  not 
hold  of  Angels,  but  of  the  seed  of  Abraham  he 
taketh  hold."  He  plainly  declares  the  unspeaka- 
ble majesty  of  the  Divine  Sovereignty  in  choos- 
ing fallen  men  as  the  objects  of  that  work  of 
redemption,  which,  beyond  all  things,  reveals 
his  own  glorious  character,  rather  than  fallen 
angels,  who,  to  the  eye  of  sense,  might  perhaps 
seem  to  have  a  better  claim.  And  with  this 
view  of  the  Divine  Sovereignty,  he  combines 
the  equally  astonishing  view  of  the  unspeakable 
condescension  of  the  Divine  love.  Of  one  of 
two  fallen  families,  who  are  alike  in  his  hands, 
and  not  one  word  in  favour  of  either  of  which 
might  any  created  being  venture  to  speak,  he 
saith,  "  Let  them  be  reserved  in  chains  of  dark- 
ness to  the  judgment  of  the  great  day ; "  while 
of  the  other  he  saith,  "Deliver  from  going  down 
to  the  pit,  I  have  found  a  ransom."  Here  is  his 
sovereignty.  And  what  is  the  ransom  for  the 
race  to  be  redeemed  ?  The  eternal  Son  be- 
comes man,  takes  upon  him  flesh  and  blood 
similar  in  all  respects,  sinfulness  excepted,  to 
the  creatures  of  clay  whom  he  came  to  redeem, 
10** 


116  THE    INCARNATION. 

and  dies  in  their  stead  that  they  might  live. 
Here  is  the  depth  of  his  love.  And  if  it  was 
a  great  proof  of  the  free  and  sovereign  goodness 
of  God,  that  he  chose  Israel  when  they  were 
but  "few  men  in  number,"  "the  fewest  of  all 
people,"  how  much  more  illustrious  a  display 
of  the  same  grace  did  he  give,  when  he  chose 
men  in  preference  to  angels,  as  the  objects  of 
redemption,  when  these  creatures  of  clay  were 
few  indeed,  when  the  whole  race  consisted  of 
only  two  individuals.  Any  created  judgment 
would  have  said,  What  are  these  two  feeble 
individuals  that  they  should,  for  a  moment,  be 
put  into  the  scale  with  a  multitude  of  angels  1 
Of  what  consequence  can  be  the  loss  of  two 
earthly  creatures,  who  may  be  so  destroyed  that 
none  shall  ever  spring  from  them,  compared 
with  the  loss  of  so  many  superior  creatures  ? 
But  God  determined  in  a  different  manner 
'  He  took  not  hold  of  fallen  angels,  but  of  fallen 
men  he  took  hold.'  And  why?  "Even  so, 
Father,  for  so  it  seemed  good  in  thy  sight." 

From  this  we  see  what  it  is  that  constitutes 
at  once  the  danger  and  the  dignity  of  man. 
God  has  permitted  rebellion  to  be  raised  against 
his  authority,  that  in  the  progress  of  putting  it 
down  he  might  give  a  manifestation  of  his  per- 
fections which  otherwise  could  not  have  been 


THE    INCARNATION.  117 

•given,  and  our  world  is  the  field  on  which  the 
powers  of  light  and  of  darkness  draw  out  their 
forces  in  hostile  array,  and  in  that  awful  con- 
flict which  so  deeply  engages  and  interests  the 
attention  of  the  whole  universe,  the  post  of  dan- 
ger and  of  glory,  the  van  of  the  battle  is  assigned 
to  man.     Everywhere  is  the  contest  carried  on. 
The  human  heart  is  itself  the  principal  scene 
of  strife,  and  the  soul  of  man  is  the  victor's  prize, 
and  man  himself  the  chief  gainer  or  sufferer  by 
the  result.    Angels  go  forth  as  ministering  spi- 
rits to  minister  to  them  that  shall  be  heirs  of 
salvation,  and  doubtless  delight  to  promote,  as 
far  as  may  be  in  their  power,  the  work  of  our 
salvation.     And  cheering  and  animating  as  it  is 
to  know  that  holy  angels  do  go  forth  to  our  aid, 
and  doubtless  do  render  us  essential   support, 
though  at  present  we  can  neither  know  the  ser- 
vices that  they  do  us,  nor  the  means  by  which 
they  do  them,  yet  can  we  not  forget  that  they 
mingle,  not  as  principals  but  as  auxiliaries  in 
the  strife ;  that  ours  is  the  danger  in  the  war, 
and  ours  is  the  gain  of  victory. 

And  who  is  he  who  mustereth  the  armies  of 
the  Lord  of  Hosts  ?  Who  is  the  Captain  of  sal- 
vation by  whose  strength  they  are  made  strong, 
in  whose  might  they  are  enabled  to  conquer? 
Who  makes  them  to  triumph  over  principalities 
and  powers,  over  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of 
10*** 


118  THE    INCARNATION. 

this  world,  over  spiritual  wickedness  in  high 
places  '}  Who  is  he  who  so  fully  accomplished, 
under  circumstances  of  incalculably  greater 
difficulty,  that  which  the  first  man  had  failed  to 
accomplish  ?  Was  he  one  to  whom  the  terms 
fallen,  sinful  could  with  any  propriety  be  ap- 
plied 1  No.  God  calleth  him  "  Mine  elect  in 
whom  my  soul  delighteth,"  "My  beloved  Son 
in  whom  I  am  well  pleased."  Could  language 
like  this  be  applied  to  one  who  himself  needed 
to  be  reconciled  to  God  before  he  could  recon- 
cile others  ?  No.  When  man  was  made,  Satan 
had  come  into  the  world,  boasting  that  he  had 
led  principalities  and  powers  into  sin ;  and  shall 
this  creature  of  clay  stand'/  And  the  easiness 
of  his  conquest,  and  the  completeness  of  his 
dominion,  seemed  to  leave  for  a  time  the  wisdom 
and  power  of  God  in  doubt.  He  had  found  one 
man  in  whom  he  had  nothing,  but  soon  im- 
planted sinfulness  in  him  and  made  him  an  easy 
prey.  He  is  compelled  now  to  meet,  on  the 
field  of  his  own  conquered  and  polluted  world, 
the  Second  Man,  coming  in  all  the  untainted 
sinlessness  of  the  First  Man,  but  surrounded 
with  difficulties  and  exposed  to  trials  of  which 
the  First  Man,  had  he  retained  his  innocence, 
could  have  had  no  experience,  and  yet  so 
mightily  upheld  by  the  Godhead  dwelling  in 
him,  that  Satan  and  all  his  powers  could  find 


THE    INCARNATION.  119 

nothing  in  him,  and  could  implant  nothing  in 
him,  with  which  they  might  claim  alliance,  else 
assuredly  had  he  also  become  their  prey.  And 
when  Satan  had  tried  him  and  found  nothing  in 
him,  then  did  he  stir  up  his  agents  to  plot  his 
destruction,  not  knowing  that  the  destruction  of 
Christ  was  the  appointed  means  of  his  own ; 
that  when  Christ  gave  a  life  which  he  did  not 
owe,  and  which  could  not  be  taken  from  him 
by  force,  the  life  of  a  world  dead  in  sin  was  re- 
stored,--that  when  he  entered  voluntarily  into 
the  dominion  of  death,  that  dominion  was  for 
ever  broken. 

And  if  the  events  of  any  war  are  calculated 
to  arouse  our  attention,  and  interest  our  feel- 
ings, surely  much  more  is  that  war  calculated 
to  do  so,  where  more  than  blood  may  be  spilt, 
and  more  than  empire  may  be  lost  or  won. 
When  our  own  countrymen  are  abroad  in  the 
field, — when  the  interests  of  our  country  are  at 
stake,  with  what  anxious  expectation  are  the 
news  of  every  day  waited  for ;  and  when  they 
inform  us  that  the  hostile  armies  are  approach- 
ing each  other,  with  what  palpitating  eagerness 
are  they  read  !  And  when  the  day  does  come 
that  brings  their  power  to  actual  trial  and  de- 
cision, with  what  feelings  do  we  read  and  re- 
read the  minutest  details,  and  dwell  upon  every 
incident,  and  find  every  thing,  however  trifling, 


120  THE  INCARNATION. 

possess  a  deep  importance  from  its  connexion 
with  such  a  scene !  They  are  our  countrymen, 
our  friends,  our  brothers,  whom  we  view  arran- 
ged upon  the  "  cloudy  edge  of  battle  ere  it  join," 
and  who  under  our  eye,  are  passing  into  the 
fatal  contest.  We  hear  from  afar  the  "  thunder 
of  the  captains  and  the  shoutings."  We  place 
ourselves  side  by  side  with  the  warrior,  as  he 
advances  to  the  shock,  where  point  to  point, 
and  man  to  man,  the  embattled  squadrons  close 
in  deadly  strife  ;  and  while  life  and  death  hang 
in  dreadful  suspense,  our  feelings  are  just  the 
warrior's  own,  and  our  very  nostrils  become 
expanded  with  the  intensity  of  a  sensation  that 
hardly  permits  us  to  breathe,  and  every  pulsa- 
tion of  our  hearts  bounds  in  perfect  unison 
with  his.  We  can  scarcely  at  such  a  moment 
enter  upon  a  discussion  of  the  goodness  or 
badness  of  the  cause,  or  to  philosophize  on 
the  manifold  crimes  and  atrocities  of  war. 
When  we  have  imbibed  the  very  spirit  of  the 
warrior,  when  we  are  glorying,  exulting  in  the 
view,  in  the  very  feeling  of  an  energy  which 
no  toils  can  weary,  of  an  ardour  which  no  dif- 
ficulties can  abate,  of  a  courage  which  the  mul- 
tiplication of  dangers  only  arouses  to  a  greater 
intensity  of  daring  ;  at  such  a  moment  the  cold- 
ness of  our  moral  calculations  is  melted  away  ; 
the  voice  of  reason  and  of  philosophy  is 


THE  INCARNATION.  121 

drowned;  and  ''the  raptures  of  the  strife  "are 
all  our  own  ;  and  to  no  voice  can  we  listen,  till 
the  "  earthquake  voice  of  victory  "  bursts  upon 
our  ear.  I  ask  not  if  this  be  a  Christian  or  a 
righteous  feeling.  I  am  merely  stating  a  fact 
of  which  every  man  must  be  conscious,  that 
on  such  an  occasion,  such  are  our  feelings. 
Nor  is  the  art  of  the  poet  or  the  orator  requi- 
site to  awaken  them.  The  interest  lies  in  the 
facts  themselves,  and  the  dry  details  of  a  des- 
patch, or  the  prosaic  insipidity  of  a  gazette, 
has  doubtless  often  been  read  with  an  intensity 
of  interest  which  the  most  animated  poetry 
never  excited. 

But  while  there  are  few  who  do  not  in  some 
degree  experience  these  feelings,  there  are 
many  who  are  totally  dead  to  the  feelings  that 
should  naturally  be  awakened  by  a  much  more 
important  and  eventful  war, — that  moral  and 
spiritual  war  which  is  carried  on  around  us 
and  within  us,  where  more  than  mortal  powers 
are  opposed,  and  more  than  mortal  interests  are 
at  stake.  But  whatever  we  may  be,  the  angels 
who  have  become  acquainted  with  the  character 
of  God,  through  the  work  of  man's  redemption, 
are  not  insensible  to  the  progress  of  that  work. 
They  surround  the  throne  of  the  Most  High, 
with  golden  harps  ;  and  the  events  which  awa- 
ken these  harps  to  heavenly  harmony,  and  pour 


122  THE    INCARNATION. 

from  their  strings  that  melody  to  which  God 
condescends  to  listen,  and   which   mortal  ear 
may  never  hear,  are  just  the  triumphs  of  "  the 
redeemed   of   the   Lord"  over  the  influence  of 
that  "  other  lord1'  who  has  had  dominion  over 
them  ;  and  whose  chains  they  have  been  ena- 
bled to  burst,  through  the  power  of  him,  who 
amidst  all  the  weakness  of  human  flesh,  and 
under  all   the    weight  of  the  guilt  of   a  lost 
world,  and  all  the  deadliest  efforts  of   Satan's 
power,  never  fell,  and  never  felt  one  unholy 
desire   or  emotion.     And  "  the  spirits  of  the 
just  made  perfect,"  clothed  in  the  spotless  robe 
of  a  Redeemer's   righteousness,   feel  it   their 
glorious  privilege  to  tell  of  the  toils  which  they 
have  been  enabled  to  sustain  in   fighting  the 
good  fight, — of  the  hardness  which,  as  good 
soldiers   of    Jesus     Christ,    they    have    been 
strengthened    to   endure, — and  of  the  energy 
which  they  derived   from   the  consciousness 
that  when  (:  Christ  was  formed    in   them   the 
hope  of  glory  ;''    their  hearts  were  enriched 
not  only    with   an   uncorrupted,    but   with  an 
incorruptible  seed, — a  principle  which   Satan 
could  not  subvert,  nor   death   itself  destroy. 
And  can  we  hope  to  partake  with  them  in  their 
raptures,  to  unite   with  them   in  singing   the 
song  of  triumph  and  of  praise,  if  we  can  con- 
template the  mighty    warfare    that  is   going 


THE  INCARNATION.  123 

on  between  the  powers  of  light  and  darkness, 
with  the  most  perfect  apathy,  as  if  we  had  no 
personal  interest  in  the  matter  ;  and  while  we 
have  an  ear  open  to  the  most  trivial  news  of 
the  day,  have  neither  an  ear  to  hear,  nor  a 
heart  to  be  interested  in  the  events  of  this 
mighty  war,  but  listen  to  any  mention  of  it,  as 
if  it  were  a  matter  of  less  importance  than  the 
savage  encounters  of  ferocious  hordes  of  bar- 
barians, on  the  banks  of  the  Danube  or  the 
shores  of  the  Euxine. 

I  have  but  one  additional  remark  to  make. 
It  is  this  ;  that  for  man  no  middle  fate  is  pre- 
pared, but  happiness  or  misery  in  the  extreme 
must  be  his.  The  selected  instruments  of 
carrying  on  that  war  which  God  wages  with 
sin  ;  the  weak  vessels  of  clay  chosen  to  con- 
found the  mighty,  through  the  power  of  him 
who  was  incarnate  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
even  to  us  worms  of  the  dust  the  victory  over 
death  and  him  that  had  the  power  of  death, — 
if  wearied  with  the  toils  of  the  warfare,  or  in- 
sensible to  the  glory  of  the  victory,  we  desert 
to  the  enemy,  and  continue  his  willing  and 
unresisting  slaves,  then  do  we  sink  into  con- 
demnation under  the  weight  of  a  criminality 
which  even  fallen  angels  could  not  contract, 
for  they  at  least  have  never  treated  the  offered 
mercy  of  God  with  contempt.  And  well  may 


124  THE  INCARNATION. 

they  wonder  to  see  in  the  human  heart,  a  blind- 
ness, a  perversity,  a  madness  which  despises 
even  the  offered  friendship  of  God,  and  the 
glories  of  heaven.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  who  through  faith  in  Christ  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  enter  there,  the  admiration 
of  angels,  purchased  with  a  price  which  for 
the  fallen  portion  of  their  own  order  was  never 
paid,  and  rescued  out  of  dangers  to  which  they 
themselves  were  never  exposed ;  and  therefore 
do  they  glorify  God  in  his  saints,  and  admire 
him  in  all  them  that  believe. 

Human  nature  is  at  this  moment  the  highest 
of  created  natures,  and  more  intimately  united 
to  the  Godhead  than  any  other  ;  and  where  our 
Head  is,  there,  in  due  time,  shall  all  his  mem- 
bers be.  Whoever  then  thou  art  who  readest 
this  my  page,  my  message  to  thee  is,  remember 
that  in  a  few  short  years,  thou  must  occupy 
that  place  to  which  angels  may  look  up  with 
admiration,  or  that  on  which  devils  may  look 
down  with  the  conviction  that  they  have  been 
less  guilty.  Higher  than  heaven  is  the  fate  of 
him  whom  the  Sovereign  of  the  universe  be- 
came man  to  redeem  ;  and  lower  than  hell  must 
be  the  fate  of  him  who,  even  at  such  a  price, 
refused  to  be  redeemed.  This  awful  yet  ani- 
mating consideration,  may  well  arouse  us  to 
hasten  our  escape  from  "  the  wrath  that  is  to 


THE    INCARNATION.  125 

come,"  and  to  "  resist  even  unto  blood,  striving 
against  sin."  How  powerfully  does  it  enforce 
the  admonition  of  the  Apostle,  "  Therefore,  my 
beloved  brethren,  be  ye  steadfast,  unmoveable, 
always  abounding  in  the  work  of  the  Lord, 
forasmuch  as  ye  know  that  your  labour  is  not 
in  vain  in  the  Lord  !" 


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